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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ^ 







V i 



HINTS 



ON THE 



FORMATION OF MLIGIOUS OPINIONS. 



ADDRESSED ESPECIALLY TO 



YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. 



Hold fast that which is good."— Paul. 



BY REV. RAY PALMER, D.D., 

PASTOR OP THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, ALBANY 



SHELDON & COMPANY, 115 Nassau Street. 
BOSTON: GQTTLD & LINCOLN. 

1860. 






Entereb, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 

SHELDON & COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of 
New York. 



J. H. TOBITT, 
COMBIN ATION-TTPB P E I IT T E R 

1 FranUin Square^ JV. T. 



PuDNET & Russell's 

PRESS- WORK, 

79 John-street, N. Y. 



rf? 






TO 

JULIUS A. PALMER, ESQ., 

OF BOSTON, MASS., 

WHOSE WARM FRATERNAL AFFECTION AND STEADY CHRISTIAN 
FRIENDSHIP HAVE BEEN AMONG THE GREATEST BLESSINGS OF 
MY life; and WHOSE FAITHFUL LABORS AND LONG EXPERI- 
ENCE IN THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF YOUNG MEN AND 
WOMEN WILL ENABLE HIM TO APPRECIATE THIS ATTEMPT TO 
AID THEM IN THEIR DIFFICULTIES J THESE PAGES ARE AFFEC- 
TIONATELY INSCRIBED, 

BY HIS OBLIGED AND GRATEFUL BROTHER, 

EAY PALMER. 



PREFACE 



The following discourses are not addressed to posi- 
tive unbelief. A different method would be neces- 
sary in order to the hopeful treatment of this. They 
were prepared for the benefit of those who having 
been educated into a full belief of the Christian 
faith, have found themselves, on coming to maturity, 
or afterwards, disturbed with inward questionings and 
doubts. The design was, by hints in relation to some 
of the more important subjects, to assist such in giving 
their thoughts a right direction, and in confirm- 
ing themselves intelligently in their early religious 
convictions. The reader will not expect to find in 
popular addresses, the completeness of discussion 
which belongs to the class room; but only such 

(V) 



VI PREFACE. 

a style of treatment as tlie occasion and the special 
end in view demanded. In the present state (ff tlie 
popular mind, there are doubtless great numbers 
of the best educated young people of our country, 
who, whether they avow it or not, are in the state of 
uncertainty and hesitation to which we have referred. 
To such it is hoped these pages may have an interest, 
and render some timely aid. 

E. P. 

Albany, Octobeb, 1860. 



COISTTEKTS 



PAGE 

I. EVILS OF A STATE OF PERMANENT SCEPTICISM . 9 

n. LAWS OF ■REASONING ON MORAL AND RELIGIOUS 

SUBJECTS 29 

in. RESPONSrBILITT OF ISIEN FOR THEIR OPINIONS . 60 

lY. PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS 71 

Y. THE BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD A RESULT OF 
THE CONSTITUTION AND RELATIONS OF THE 

SOUL 90 

YI. THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN FOR THE DIVINE 

EXISTENCE 113 

YII. A PRESUMPTION IN FAVOR OF THE CHRISTIAN 

REVELATION AT THE OUTSET 132 

Yin. CHRISTIANITY AUTHENTICATED IN THE EXPE- 
RIENCE OF ITS POWER 157 

IX. CHRISTIANITY A RELIGION OF FACTS 179 

X. MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH 200 

XI. THE HIGHEST EVIDENCE MAY NOT PRODUCE BE- 

LIEF 217 

XII. THE DARK THINGS OF LIFE IN THE LIGHT OF 

REVELATION 236 

Xin. THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION THE SOLE HOPE OF 

THE WORLD 255 

XIY. DIVINE GUIDANCE A GREAT NECESSITY 281 

XY. THE VALUE OF A LIFE AS RELATED TO OUR TIME 301 

(viO 



EVILS OF A STATE OF SCEPTICISM, 



Heb. xiii : 9. Be not carried about with divers and 
strange doctrines : for it is a good thing that the 
heart he established with grace. 

I HAVE been for some time proposing to myself to 
address to the congregation, more particularly to the 
younger portion of it, some thoughts on the formation 
of religious opinions. The vital importance of the 
topic as related to the present state of the popular 
mind, and the consideration that there is growing up 
among us so large a class of intelligent young persons, 
many of whom have enjoyed superior advantages of 
education, have seemed to render it specially proper 
that our attention should be turned in this direction. 
I am aware that a full and thorough discussion of the 
subject, would involve tlie treating of some questions 
too abstruse and difficult for popular discourse, but 
without proposing to say all that such a discussion 
(9) 1^ 



10 DISCOIJKSES ON THE 

would require, it may at least be possible to give 
such hints as may be useful to tlie thoughtful and 
candid inquirer. This is what I shall attempt to do. 
The importance to be attached to the forming of 
opinions, in any case, will of course be proportioned 
to the intrinsic moment of the matter to which they 
relate. The fact that we gather here from week to 
week, is itself an acknowledgment that, in our judg- 
ment, the things pertaining to religion are things of 
the gravest import. It is a virtual avowal that we 
are convinced, at least in our understandings, that our 
religious responsibilities are most weighty and solemn 
in their bearing, our religious interests the most sacred 
and precious of all the interests of our being, and re- 
ligious truth, of course, of all truth the most highly 
to be prized. Whatever directly concerns our char- 
acters and training as the responsible creatures of 
God and the heirs of immortality, does certainly 
demand our earnest consideration. 

The present topic of discourse, will be that which is 
naturally suggested by the text : — the evils of an hab- 
itually unsettled and fluctuating state of mind, as 
compared with the fixed stability which rests on the 
solid foundations of truth, thoroughly examined and 
cordially received and held. 

It would seem hardly to be expected, where ample 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 11 

means of religious knowledge are enjoyed, that such 
a state of mind should be a common thing. The hab- 
itual study of Christianity in its sacred records and in 
its practical results, from childhood up to adult years, 
would gradually, it might naturally be supposed, 
lead to a full and satisfying conviction of its truth, or 
else to the decided and conclusive rejection of it as a 
false and worthless system. The fact, however, it is 
certain is quite otherwise. Perhaps in nothing does 
the perverted condition of our moral nature more 
appear, than in the inaptitude which men naturally 
exhibit to comprehend truths which are spiritual in 
their nature, and the difficulty with which .they are 
brought to feel their reality, and to perceive their 
practical applications in relation to themselves. This 
want of susceptibility to the truths pertaining to God 
and religion, was recognized by Socrates and Plato, 
by Cicero and Seneca, as well as by Paul and John. 
Deism not less than Christianity has encountered and 
acknowledged it. It is, indeed, too plain to be denied, 
it is a fact that stands out in prominence on the his- 
tory of the race, that the clearness with which the 
moral and spiritual truths which most concern men 
are perceived, and the strength of the impression which 
they make, are not at all in proportion, generally, to 
the evidence with which they are attended. Hence 



12 DISCOTTESES ON THE 

doubt very frequently exists, where the materials of 
certainty are ample. 

Of those who are educated under religious light 
and influence, and who are led in early life to accept 
Christianity, a very considerable number sooner or 
later find themselves to have reached a state in which 
they are disposed to question almost everything per- 
taining to religion. More commonly this crisis ar- 
rives in advanced youth, or on the verge of manhood. 
Up to that time, the mind has been content to take 
as truth, on the authority of others and with but httle 
question, whatever may have been taught it. It has 
acquiesced, without serious difficulty, in the state- 
ments of parents and teachers as to what were the 
claims of duty ; and has generally taken it for granted, 
however little it may practically have felt their power, 
that the views in which it has been trained to rest are 
sound. But now there comes a change. Of the 
views and impressions which childhood entertained 
on a variety of subjects, advancing years and knowl- 
edge have shown many to be erroneous. In respect 
to others, it is now perceived that although they may 
be true, they have been received without examina- 
tion, and retained by the force of habit or authority, 
and not from an apprehension of the evidence 
by which they are made certain. It is not strange 
that such discoveries should beget a doubting spirit — 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 13 

a disposition to doubt even with as little reason, and 
as little justice as was exhibited before in yielding an 
assent. In this state of mind the inquirer is inclined 
to question everything, as he once was to believe 
everything. He has found a few things, or if you 
please, many things, to be false, and so he is afraid 
to believe that anything is true. He passes, by a not 
unnatural process, from the extreme of credulity to 
the extreme of scepticism. 

"No wonder that, in such a state of feeling, the 
truths of religion, and its claims, should come to be 
questioned with a greater or less degree of earnest- 
ness ; and inasmuch as they make a strong appeal to 
the conscience, on the mere statement of them and 
aside from all proof, and also involve, if they are 
what they seem, the highest of all interests, it is only 
natural that the result should be an inward strife, 
perplexed and troubled thoughts, and a restless uncer- 
tainty of mind whenever these subjects are considered. 
As an aggravation of the evil, too, it is just at this 
same period that the }■ outhful heart begins to feel the 
temptations that solicit appetite and kindle passion, 
attracting to self-indulgence and the pursuit of 
worldly pleasure. It is perceived that religion speaks 
with a grave and earnest voice ; that she commands 
self- discipline and self-restraint ; that she forbids to 
make life a mere chase after selfish gratifications, and 



14: DISCOUKSES ON THE 

insists that great and difficult duties should be under- 
taken and laboriously discharged. Here, then, are 
reasons, to the young just beginning to look out on 
life's illusions, for wishing that the teachings of reli- 
gion may not, after all, be true ; and the excited wish 
is likely to exert a powerful influence on the judg- 
ment, and greatly to increase the difficulty of weigh- 
ing these teachings with candid impartiality. Be- 
tween a doubting frame of mind and the drawing of 
inclination, on the one hand, — and the wants of the 
soul and the urgent power of religious truth, upon the 
other, the individual hesitates, and balances, and 
wavers, and seems to himself to be standing among 
shifting sands, where he can plant his feet on nothing 
that is firm. 

At this point one of three things must happen. 
Either the mind must become utterly lost to truth, 
and settle itself on the ultimately fatal grounds of 
false opinion ; or, it must drift on unfixed, full of un- 
certainty, and driven now this way and now that' on 
the troubled sea of doubt ; or, lastly, it must lay hold 
of the strong cable of sound evidence, and intelli- 
gently, and deliberately cast anchor on the sure found- 
ations of the truth. There are doubtless some who 
do succeed in confirming themselves in falsehood be- 
yond the chance of recovery, We are sure, also, that 
there are those who gain a hold on truth which noth- 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 15 

ing can relax, and which permanently sets their 
hearts at rest. But how large a number fall into the 
intermediate class, the class of perpetual doubters ! 
— of unstable souls, who habitually live in the disas- 
trous twilight of uncertain speculation, and are car- 
ried about by diverse and strange doctrines, always 
catching at a new absurdity to relieve the weariness 
of dwelling on the last ; who, in short, are very much 
in the condition of Milton's fallen angels when they 

Reasoned higli 
Of Providence, fore-knowledge, wiU and fate, 
And found no end in wandering mazes lost. 

What can be more deplorable than this unnatural, 
this morbid bewilderment of the soul ! A rational 
nature was surely never made to live in a realm of 
phantoms that forever mock it by putting on new 
shapes. Such a state is of all things to be dreaded. 

For, in the first place, it must needs be an ex- 
ceedingly unhappy state. To all minds that have 
received even a moderate degree of cultivation, it is 
a source of positive pleasure to have, on all important 
subjects, clear views and well defined opinions. The 
healthful faculties delight in reaching and grasping 
truth when excited to inquiry. They are gratified at 
being able to settle things with certainty. So, on the 
contrary, it is painful to the sound mind to grope 



16 DISCOUKSES ON THE 

about in the "everlasting fog" — to be threading 
backward and forward the mazy labyrinths of vague 
inquiry, which chases shadows and catches at empti- 
ness, finding nothing solid on which it can rely. This, 
we say, is the constitutional law of the mind, let the 
subject about which it inquires be what it may. 

But if the matter in question be one on the right 
understanding of which great consequences are 
depending, there must be, in addition to the doubtful- 
ness, the pain of anxious apprehension. The fear of 
what calamities may, soon or late, result from failure 
to ascertain the truth, will often haunt the mind and 
mingle more or less with all its thoughts. Religion, 
it is clearly seen, if it be anything, is of the highest 
imaginable interest ; and to miss the truth in such an 
affair, may, it cannot but be felt, involve irreparable 
loss, disaster that nothing can retrieve. Here is a 
most effectual cause of disquiet to the soul. How 
can a man have inward peace, when it is wholly un- 
certain, in his view, whether he is the offspring of an 
Infinite Mind, or of a blind chance ; whether he has 
a nature essentially angelic, or is only a better sort 
of brute ; whether he has any certain guide to duty, 
or is left to find it out by accident ; and whether, if 
he survive the tomb, his happiness or misery will, or 
will not, be then at all affected, by his present char- 
acter and conduct ? Eest content with such questions 



FOEMATION OF EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. IT 

as these unsettled ! A fool may — a man of reflection 
cannot. You might as well rest content on a stormy 
sea, when you know not whether your ship be sound 
or rotten ; your chart and compass reliable or worth- 
less ; the hoarse murmur which you hear, the howl- 
ing of the wind, or the roar of the surf that beats on 
the fatal rocks ! ITothing but profound stupidity, can 
give the mind that lives in a state of wavering uncer- 
tainty respecting the essentials of religion anything 
that really deserves the name of peace. 

It is, also, evident, still further, that a state of 
chronic scepticism tends greatly to enfeeble both the 
character and the mind. There is a very common 
mistake on this point. It is no unusual thing to meet 
with those, more particularly among young men, who 
have the notion that there is something indicative of 
a superior mind, in a state of doubt. They imagine 
it a mark of originality and penetration to be scepti- 
cal about those things which others confidently 
believe — to be starting difficulties in opposition to all 
opinions ; and so they are led ^rather to cultivate an 
unsettled habit of mind, than to endeavor to escape it. 
But the truth is just the reverse of this. A really 
vigorous and healthful mind cannot be satisfied to 
continue long in a dubious state, when, as is true in 
the matter of religion, the materials for forming fixed 



18 DISCOUE6E8 ON THE 

conclusions are at hand. A strong mind presses on to 
a decision. It is content only when getting at results. 
A sceptical habit — observe I do not say a season of 
temporary questioning, but a chronic hahit of doubt- 
ing — ^most generally indicates a want of mental energy 
to lay hold of evidence and to appreciate its force ; a 
lack of the strength of mind required in order to rise 
above the prejudices and biases that embarrass and 
tend to warp the judgment. It betrays an intellec- 
tual feebleness already existing and likely to perpetu- 
ate itself. 

For when the mind has been allowed, and rather 
encom^aged, to wander among the mists of doubt ; to 
look rather after difficulties, than after proofs ; it seems 
to become incapable of logical deduction and unsus- 
ceptible to the effect of evidence. Having accustomed 
itself to waver, it cannot, when it would, decide ; or, 
if it has in any case decided, it cannot hold to its de- 
cision. What yesterday it examined and concluded 
to be true, it is to-day, just as much as ever, disposed 
again to question. There is a manifest enfeebling of 
the power by which the mind, when in a vigorous 
state, makes use of evidence to establish itself with 
collected firmness on the solid ground of truth. That 
it should be so results from well-known laws of mind 

It will also be true that in proportion to this loss of 
force of intellect, there will be likewise a loss of gen- 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 19 

eral force of character. He wlio is unable to decide 
with promptness, will not be able to execute with 
vigor. The habitual vacillation of the mind will be 
sure to exhibit itself in a feeble time-serving, irreso- 
lute course of action. There is no class of truths 
which operates so powerfully in forming the whole 
character as religious truths. There are no motives 
which produce such energy of purpose as the motives 
which religious faith supplies. A state of habitual 
doubting therefore, while it tends, whatever be the 
subject, to infirmity of mind and character, must tend 
to this with special force and certainty when it is in 
relation to the essentials of religion itself that the 
habit is indulged. Live without any settled views in 
politics, in philosophy, in practical economy, and you 
will be a weaker man than you would be with fixed 
convictions in relation to those subjects. But live in 
dim bewilderment in regard to the great matter of 
religion, and the enfeebling influence will be felt in a 
far higher and more mischievous degree. It will 
make you vastly more inferior, as a man, to what you 
would have been with a settled religious faith. 

There is yet another evil result of the habit of 
mind in question. It is very liable to impair the love 
of truth, and to lower the estimate set on it by the 
judgment. Truth has been well defined to be " the 



20 DISCOURSES ON THE 

reality of things." To know truth is to know things 
as they are. On knowing them in this manner, on 
having a right nnderstanduig especially of those 
things that directly relate to ns, onr highest welfare 
essentially depends. I^othing therefore, in fact, is so 
precious to us as truth. As Solomon has said — the 
merchandise of it is better than the merchandise, of 
silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. It is more 
precious than rubies ; and all the things thou canst 
desire are not to be compared to it. God has, accord- 
ingly, given the mind an instinctive love for truth, a 
natural desire to know things as they are. It is this 
prompts the inquisitiveness of childhood — the prying 
curiosity that desires to have all mysteries cleared up, 
and that presses inquiry often back to the very ele- 
ments of thought. It is an important end of educa- 
tion to encourage and strengthen this desire, and give 
it a right direction ; and observation and experience 
show that, in respect to many subjects at least, it is, 
on the other hand, capable of being weakened, and 
almost or quite destroyed. 

It is found, for example, especially easy to repress 
the instinctive desire to know, when there is occa- 
sion to apprehend that the knowledge of the truth 
might be for any reason painful ; and this is the case 
invariably in respect to sinful man when he inquires 
about religion. While on this, as on other subjects, 



FORMATION OF REL1GI0IT8 OPINIONS. 21 

he feels the natural desire for knowledge, there are 
conscious reasons growing out of his own character, 
which prompt him to resist this desire, and rather to 
shrink from full and certain knowledge, than to seek 
it. He is inclined to indulge himself in something. 
The question — is it right — suggests itself. K he 
presses the inquiry, he may find himself obliged to 
deny his inclination ; and he will be very likely for this 
reason not to press it. The appetite for truth may 
yield to the stronger appetite for self-indulgence 
which now has possession of the mind. In every such 
case, of com-se, the love of truth must necessarily be 
weakened. There will be less appreciation of its 
value than before ; and if the oftener the love of 
truth is repressed for such a reason, the feebler it be- 
comes, it must finally be destroyed. But this is what 
is happening all the while in the unsettled, wavering, 
and doubtful mind. The inclination to indulge in all 
sorts of curious speculations and even idle fancies ; to 
wander round and round from one opinion to another 
without seriously attempting to settle upon any, re- 
sists and gradually overpowers the instinctive appe- 
tite for truth. Truth now loses her attractiveness. 
There is a growing insensibility to her inestimable 
value ; and at last there comes an indifferent reckless- 
ness that cares but little whether it has the truth or 
not ; and which is ready to adopt the foolish maxim — 



22 DISCOURSES ON THE 

that it does not matter whether one's opinions accord 
with the reality of things or not. Great, inexpres- 
sibly great, is the mischief done, when the rational 
soul, in its constitution noble, is thus virtually divest- 
ed of one of its highest and most glorious attributes. 
It is fallen and debased indeed when its inward long- 
ing after truth, and especially religious truth, is felt 
no more. 

It remains only to say finally, that a state of scep- 
tical uncertainty is attended with great danger as re- 
gards its last result. To doubt about anything is, of 
course to, admit the possibility that it is true. To 
doubt about the claims and obligations of religion is 
to allow that we not sure that these are not founded 
in reality. But while those who are floating on the 
sea of doubt, confess, by their very uncertainty, that 
the teachings of religion may quite possibly be true, 
they are sure to act, in the main, as though certain 
they were false. So long, for example, as you doubt 
whether there be a God, you will act, almost with 
certainty, as though you knew there were none ; that 
is, you will live to yourself alone. So long as you 
doubt whether the Bible be a supernatural revelation, 
yon will allow it to have little if any more weight 
with you than if you certainly knew its claims to be 
unfounded ; you will not suffer it to control you. So 



FOEMATION OP RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 23 

long as you doubt whether you are to live beyond the 
grave, you will demean yourself, for the most part, as 
though the contrary were the fact ; you will confine 
your thoughts to the present life. And then, by the 
supposition, when you have lived and acted as though 
these things are false, they may after all, turn out to 
be the great and solemn realities which they are be- 
lieved by religious men to be. When you shall have 
wasted life and opportunities in urging difficulties, 
and asking curious questions and indulging in specula- 
tive scepticism, you may, as your doubts imply, awake 
to the serious certainty that there is a God, that the 
Scriptures are divine, that your spirit is immortal, 
that life was a season of probation, and that eternity 
is the scene of righteous and unending retribution. 
We are not now asserting, let it be observed, that 
these things are indeed so ; we are only saying that 
since by doubting, you concede that they possibly are 
true, even to your own judgment it must be clear that 
you run the tremendous risk ofjmding them all true, 
though you have lived as if they were all fiction. It 
needs no words to show that if you live as though th^ 
truths of religion were mere dreams, and it shall 
finally turn out that they are great realities, you are 
undone inevitably and that forever. This, then, is 
the amazing peril of resting in a dubious unestablished 
frame. Even those who do this cannot but perceive 



24 DISCOURSES on the 

that they run the hazard, the unspeakably awful haz- 
ard, of a wretched, lost eterrnity. Keligion and god- 
liness, according to their view of things, hang tremb- 
ling in equal balance. The side of religion may, they 
admit, preponderate ; and if it does, they have made 
everlasting shipwreck of their souls ! How much to 
be deprecated and dreaded is a position that involves 
continually the danger of a fall from which there is 
no recovery ! 

Here, then, are weighty reasons for regarding it as 
a very serious evil to be in habitual doubt in regard 
to the truths and duties of religion — reasons which 
make it appear in the highest degree desirable that 
the heart should be established. Of course it follows 
that nothing should be done, by any thoughtful per- 
son to favor such a state, but that, on the contrary, 
diligent and resolute effort should be made to avoid, 
or to escape it. When in the gradual unfolding and 
progress of the mind, that questioning, inquiring per- 
iod, of which we spoke in the beginning, comes, it is 
m most interesting and critical period in one's history. 
It need not launch one on a boundless sea of doubt ; 
engendering the chronic, intellectual and moral dis- 
ease of scepticism without end. It may be, it ought 
to be, the season in which the mind, enlightened and 
well directed, obtains the mastery over prejudice and 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 25 

inclination; lays hold of truth with a clear under- 
standing of its grounds, and finds in it so received an 
abiding test. 

Do any of you, my younger hearers, find the im- 
pressions of your childhood giving way, in some de- 
gree, so that you feel disposed to question them 
and to demand on what foundation they are based ? 
You see with what seriousness you should re- 
gard the crisis. Isever, in all your life, has there 
been a time wJien you so greatly needed the counsel 
of your kindest, most faithful and judicious friends. 
To listen now to the cavils of the scofi'er ; to neglect 
calm honest thought and careful reading ; to indulge 
the affectation of singularity in your opinions, or the 
taste for idle speculation ; to please yourselves with 
the fancy that it is a mark of manliness to doubt ; is 
almost certainly to place yourselves in that perman- 
ently evil state which we have been considering. 
Such a course is worse than folly ; it is madness such 
as words cannot express. 

Yes ! Believe it, my intelligent young friend — the 
poor way-faring man, who wanders homeless and 
friendless over the wide world, finding never a voice 
of greeting nor a resting place in which he may take 
up his abode, is far — far less an object of compassion, 
than he whose soul is driven about perpetually in 



26 DISCOUESES ON THE 

the chaos of confused and dubious thought, where all 
is dim and shadowy, and can find nothing that is 
stable ; who as to the highest and most vital questions 
of his being, has established nothing, and positively 
believes nothing ! Hather than suffer yourselves to 
slide into such a state, it were wisdom to suspend all 
other business, to shut yourselves up in the chamber 
of meditation and research and to bend the undivided 
energies of your minds on this one work of reaching 
conclusions which will satisfy; and this with humble, 
earnest prayer to the Father of Lights for that divine 
illumination without which spiritual things are never 
clearly seen by any of mankind. J^ever can you say 
that truth is beyond your reach, till you have thus 
done your utmost to discern and to embrace it, in 
simplicity and honesty of mind. When you have ac- 
tually done this, you will not wish to say it. "We say 
nothing now as to what conclusions you will come to, 
when you shall have done your whole duty in settling 
your opinions : but we do say, without any hesitation, 
that conclusions of some kind — sound conclusions — 
conclusions that will set your minds at rest — you will 
be sure to reach. 

It must be so. JSTo greater absurdity can easily be 
conceived, than that of supposing such a being as man, 
with an intellectual nature, whose instincts yearn for 
truth, placed in the midst of this grand universe of 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 27 

things, without the power to know with certainty so 
much as is essential to his welfare. No, rest assured 
you are not doomed to so miserable a lot. You can 
have satisfaction on all really vital questions if you 
will. You may plant yourselves, if you will do it, 
where, though floods come, and the tempests beat, 
and the refuges of error are all swept away, you can 
stand calmly and in serenity of soul, and feel your 
foundations firm. Believe it — nay rather, make the 
experiment for yourselves and know it wdth a happi- 
ness that cannot be described. There is Light — and 
you were made to see it. There is Eeality — and you 
were made to find it. There is religious Truth — the 
very truth for which your soul is groping — and you — 
you may grasp the inestimable treasure, and make it 
your own blessed and permanent possession. Dread 
to live doubters, as you would dread a moral pestilence 
which was certain to prove fatal to your soul. 



NATURE OF REASONING AND OF PROOF. 



1 Thess. V. 21. — Prom all things; hold fast that 
which is good. 

It is tlie high prerogative of man's intelligent na- 
ture to discriminate between truth and error. This 
is to be done by careful, honest and patient examina- 
tion, and by the application of the proper tests. 
"When facts or opinions pertaining to any subject pre- 
sent themselves to our attention, it is not until they 
have been tried by the understanding and established 
by the decision of the judgment, that we can properly 
be said to know them. Having fairly weighed all 
things, we are then able to hold fast that which is 
good. 

In referring to the evils of a permanent state of 
uncertainty and doubt, we have insisted on applying 
the mind resolutely and with vigor at the outset to 
the work of settling itself on something with the least 



DISCOURSES, ETC. 29 

• 

possible delay. In so insisting, we have assumed, 
what it seems to us against all reason to deny, tluit 
in matters so vital to our welfare as those which re- 
ligion necessarily involves, substantial truth must be 
a possible attainment to sincere and diligent inquirers. 
It may be true that no assiduity, on our part, can save 
us from falling into some comparatively trifling er- 
rors ; but certainly it must be possible to save our- 
selves from such as are fundamental in their nature — 
such as will have an essential bearing on the highest 
interests of our being. Of what use, pray, are the 
rational powers in which we boast ourselves, if they 
will not avail us at least so far as this ? 

But in order to the right use of our faculties, and 
of our means of knowledge, in the pursuit of religious 
truth, it is indispensable that we distinctly understand 
what mode of reasoning, and what principles of evi- 
dence, are demanded in the discussion of the great 
themes of religion. A wrong impression on the mind 
as to the kind of proof to be expected, in order to the 
establishment of particular truths, is without doubt 
one of the greatest, and at the same time one of the 
most common sources of embarrassment to those who 
are seriously endeavoring to settle their religious 
opinions. Many such persons have never had their 
attention called to the nature of evidence ; and have 
not been led to notice that different subjects require 



30 DISCOURSES ON THE 

widely different kinds and degrees of proof, and even 
directly opposite methods of inquiry. From mistaken 
apprehensions as to these material things, they have 
been baffled in their earnest investigations when they 
should have arrived at certainty. 

It is my present object, therefore, to explain the 
nature of the reasoning and the proof by which re- 
ligious truth in general is established. If the topic 
seems abstruse, and requires some special attention to 
understand it, the vast importance of it practically in 
relation to religious inquiry, must be my apology for 
"taxing your attention with it. I will try to make 
what I wish to say as clear as possible. 

First then, I observe that there are two kinds of 
reasoning employed to establish truth. One of these 
is called demonstrative, the other probable, or moral. 
This distinction is not a mere refinement of the 
schools ; it is founded in the nature of things, and 
may be comprehended by any person of ordinary 
understanding. Demonstrative reasoning starts with 
something which is known, advances with positive 
certainty at each successive step, and ends in a con- 
clusion that is absolutely irresistible, commanding 
the unqualified assent of every person who under- 
stands the statement of the process. Moral reason- 
ing, OQ the other hand, proceeds by adding proba- 



FOKMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 31 

bility to probability, until there is no more room for 
reasonable doubt ; and, from the nature of the case, 
a given amount of moral evidence may produce very 
different degrees of conviction in the minds of differ- 
ent persons. • It is a proposition in geometry, that the 
angles contained in any triangle, are together equal 
to two right angles. The proof of this is drawn 
directly from the nature of lines and angles as pre- 
viously defined ; and the certainty of the conclusion 
is the same to every person in the world who is able 
to comprehend the terms employed. This is demon- 
stration. I am told for the first time that there was 
such a man as Julius Caesar. I demand the proof. 
A variety of facts are adduced in evidence, which 
separately rest on different authorities, and some of 
which have more and some have less weight, when 
taken by themselves ; but all together, they prove 
that such a person did exist beyond a question, 
though not beyond the conceivable possibility that 
the contrary should be true. This is probable, or 
moral reasoning. It does not start in premises, nor 
end in conclusions, which are certain in the very na- 
ture of things. 

The two methods, then, are seen to be altogether 
unlike. The one determines what is necessarily true ; 
the other what is true in fact. A demonstration is 
wholly worthless if it be not absolutely perfect. A 



32 DISCOURSES ON THE 

course of moral reasoning, on the contrary, may have 
great weight, although it involves many possibilities 
of error. In the one case, conviction is entire at every 
step of the whole process ; in the other, it is gradu- 
ally wrought as the argument advances, and becomes 
stronger and stronger the further it is carried, each 
fact or circumstance combining to establish the con- 
clusion. 

In the next place, it is important to be observed 
that moral reasoning may produce as strong convic- 
tion in the mind, as firm a belief of the truth to which 
it has respect, as that which is produced by demon- 
stration. It is very far from being true that nothing 
can be received by the mind as certain, which is not 
shown to be necessary in the nature of things. If 
this were so, then there would be nothing certain to 
us, which requires to be proved at all, except the 
abstract truths of mathematics and geometry ; where- 
as there are, in point of fact, a thousand things not in 
themselves self-evident, which we believe as surely 
as our own existence, and to which demonstrative 
reasoning cannot be applied. Indeed, in the deter- 
mination of our conduct every day in the practical 
affairs of life, we are continually coming to conclu- 
sions and acting on them without the least misgiving, 
with as absolute certainty as the mind is capable of 
feeling, where moral evidence — the evidence of pro- 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPLNIONS. 33 

babilities — alone is possible. Of course, if this be 
BO, the fact that any particular truth does not admit of 
demonstration, by no means makes it certain that it 
does not admit of jproof^oi being established to the 
entire satisfaction of the mind. If this matter is not 
clearly understood, there will be continual embar- 
rassment in the attempt to settle truth. 

Let us illustrate, then, for the sake of clearness. 
You are a merchant. Tou go to the post-oflSce, and 
take from it a letter to your address. You receive it 
with full conviction that it comes from your business 
correspondent at l^ew Orleans. You are as sure of 
this as you are tliat two and two make four ; and no- 
thing can add to the strength of your assurance. But 
on what is this assurance grounded ? You have not, 
and cannot have, the evidence of demonstration. 
Demonstrative reasoning, from its very nature, can 
have no application to such cases. Your proof is all 
of the moral, or probable kind. Your sure belief is 
produced by a combination of circumstances which, 
according to the laws of the human mind, have all 
the force of demonstration, while not one element of 
the thing is really involved. This an analysis will 
show you. 

Your ship, we will suppose, was expected to reach 
her port at a certain date ; this letter bears that date, 
and purports to give an account of her arrival. 

2* 



34 DISCOUESES ON THE 

This is one circumstance. You put on board the ship 
a freight of hay ; and also some special article, say a 
few barrels of choice fruit, as a present to a friend ; 
and the letter mentions that these are all in good 
condition. Here is another authenticating item. 
You sent a verbal message by the master of the ves- 
sel to your agent — -the letter clearly implies that this 
had been delivered. Your son went passenger on 
board, and the letter refers to him as well. You for- 
warded by the master an order that your agent should 
enclose to you a draft of a particular amount and 
tenor ; the letter contains precisely such a draft. 
You are familiar with the handwriting of your agent ; 
and you recognise this letter as like the rest. And 
finally, you have a private mark which he is instruct- 
ed to place on every letter that he writes to you, and 
you find it as usual upon this. 

"What then can be more plain, than that this letter 
has absolutely conclusive proof of authenticity — proof 
as convincing to the mind as any demonstration in 
geometry. Yet this proof is all of the moral kind. 
It does not shake your confidence in the genuineness 
•of the letter — not in the least — that there is a con- 
ceivable possibility that some one has found out every- 
thing relating to your vessel and your business, has 
acquired the handwriting and possessed himself of 
the private mark, and has written you a fictitious let- 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 35 

ter, which the real one of youi* correspondent may in 
some particulars contradict to-morrow, and has made 
you a present of the draft enclosed. All this is pos- 
sible. But it is enough for you that the probabilities 
that such a combination of proofs should be found 
deceptive are infinitely small. There are a million 
to one in favor of the genuineness of the letter. You 
do not ask, you do not feel the slightest wish for 
greater certainty. 

From this example, therefore, it is manifest that 
moral reasoning is not at all inferior to demonstration 
in power to convince the mind so that it shall rest 
with absolute and unwavering confidence in the con- 
clusions it has reached. Whoever objects to the cer- 
tainty of any fact or truth which is properly supported 
by such reasoning, because demonstrative evidence is 
wanting, objects without good ground ; and only shows 
that he himself does not understand the nature and 
the laws of reasoning. Nine out of ten, yea, even a 
much greater proportion of all the particular things 
which he believes without a doubt, and on which he 
daily without any hesitation grounds his conduct, are 
believed on probable or moral evidence. This is true 
in the case of every one of us. 

We advance then, in the third place, still another 
step ; and add, that the whole field of religious truth 
lies without the circle of things which admit of de- 



36 DISCOUESES ON THE 

monstration. In other words, demonstrative reason- 
ing, in its strict sense, as we have defined it, has no 
possible application to those subjects with which re- 
ligious faith is properly concerned. We do, indeed, 
in the examination of these subjects, sometimes resort 
to the form of demonstration ; but when we do this, we 
always start from premises which rest on moral proof; 
and so at last, it is on the certainty of moral proof 
alone that our conclusions stand. Moral reasoning 
would not be more entirely out of place in an astro- 
nomical calculation, than demonstrative reasoning 
would be in an attempt to settle a primary doctrine 
of religion. 

We may refer, for the sake of illustration, to the 
being and attributes of God. We know of but one 
serious attempt to demonstrate the truth on this great 
subject — that of the celebrated Dr. Samuel Clarke; 
and this, although displaying great metaphysical 
acuteness, is universally regarded as a failure. The 
fatal difficulty is that the premises which he assumes 
as necessary truths are not such ; or, in other words, 
the very nature of the subject renders the application 
to it of such a mode of reasoning impossible. Instead, 
therefore, of demanding a demonstration of the exist- 
ence and attributes of the Deity, the inquirer who 
understands the true principles of reasoning will look 
for moral evidence ; and if he perceives that there is 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 37 

such a kind and amount of moral proof as must, when 
properly appreciated, give a certainty beyond all rea- 
sonable doubt J lie will ask for nothing more. 

Let it be supposed then, that on looking for proofs 
of the divine existence, you find the following facts. 

First, that the notion of God, of di\dnity as one or 
many, is universal among mankind ; as though it were 
to the human soul a necessary notion. 'Next, that 
when the reasoning mind sets itself to reflect upon the 
subject, it finds along with the consciousness of its 
own existence, the consciousness also that it is not 
self-existent, and a conviction that there must be a 
self-existent being on whom it is dependent. Fur- 
ther, that in both body and mind there are found clear 
indications of adaptation and design ; that the eye is 
exquisitely constructed in relation to the light, the ear 
as curiously adjusted to the atmosphere, and every 
sense and every organ throughout precisely fitted to 
its purpose ; and that the body, as a whole, is admi- 
rably suited to the entire necessities of material exist- 
ence. Then as to the mind, suppose, that it is ob- 
served to have just those instincts, susceptibilities and 
powers that are demanded by the sphere in which it 
is ordained to move, and appears to be in its capabil- 
ities of thought, affection and volition, a wonderful 
product of creative wisdom ; and that in the fact that 
it has a conscience, and an ineradicable sense of moral 



38 DISCOUESES ON THE 

obligation, it seems to stand related to law, and of 
conrse to a lawgiver. Suppose still fm-tlier, that with- 
out itself, the intellect perceives the universe as not self- 
existent, though in fact existing ; that nature in ever j 
part offers indications of a well-adjusted plan ; that 
each particular object exhibits nice contrivances which 
fit it to sustain its own existence, if endowed with any- 
kind of life, to answer its special end, and at the same 
time an obvious relation to the great system of which 
it forms a part. And finally, suppose that the grada- 
tions of animal and vegetable life, the general order, 
harmony and beauty in the entire arrangement of the 
whole, is such as to give the conception of an impres- 
sive unity in the midst of an endless variety and mul- 
titude. It appears as one grand universe, to compose 
which an inconceivable number of separate parts, or 
objects, harmoniously conspire. 

Whether these things actually are as now supposed, 
we may inquire hereafter. We only say for the pre- 
sent that if you should find them so ; and if in the 
presence of such facts, your soul should acknowledge 
and even imperatively demand a God, it would not 
disturb you that you had not a demonstration of the 
existence of a necessary infinite and eternal Being. 
You would have a moral argument carried to such a 
height of conclusiveness and strength, that it would 
be difficult to see how its convincing power could be 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 39 

increased. You would be in substantially the same 
condition as on the reception of the letter in the case 
already imagined. A million to one, as in the other 
instance, you must say within yourself, there is a 
supreme intelligent Cause, a God, as the Author of 
the universe ; and yet you would be perfectly aware 
that there was nothing of demonstration in the case. 
You would not only feel no need of such a thing, but 
you could not help perceiving that the nature of the 
subject utterly forbade it. "Where the proofs are all 
moral, the reasoning must be moral. There are no 
postulates or axioms in relation to the existence and 
attributes of God on which a course of demonstrative 
reasoning can be based. 

In like manner the question of divine revelation 
may be seen not to belong to the province of inquiry 
within which the demonstrative method can properly 
be applied. lio definitions, no first truths,. or known 
relations of things, can possibly be laid down on which 
to reason with mathematical precision here. It re- 
quires but a moment's thought to see that to expect 
or to demand that a revelation, if made, should be 
supported by evidence of this sort, would be to de- 
mand what in the nature of things is impossible and 
absurd. You must, indeed, have proof — in a matter 
of such moment, proof of the most conclusive and 
satisfying kind, in order to believe ; and if you find 



40 DISCOUKSES ON THE 

/ 

it at all, it must be in the moral form, one item added 
to another till there in no longer room for reasonable 
doubt. 

Look at the case as it lies before the mind of one 
who after examination, believes the truth of the Chris- 
tian revelation. He starts with what he deems the 
obvious need there was that God should reveal himself 
to men, and the extreme improbability that the in- 
finitely Good and "Wise would create abeing with such 
endowments as those that belong to man, and then 
abandon him to helpless ignorance in respect to the 
higfiest relations and the most important interests 
of his being. He finds next a professed revelation, 
appearing worthy to have come from God and exhib- 
iting in its contents marks of a superhuman origin, 
claiming to have been received by special divine 
communications, and professing to be sustained by 
the evidence of various prophecies and miracles. In 
support of these claims he brings together the historic 
testimony to the truth of the sacred records in 'which 
it is delivered ; the purity of its teachings and the 
grandeur of its disclosures ; its adaptation to the great 
wants of the human race ; the wonderful character, 
life, death, alleged resurrection and ascension of the 
Founder of Christianity, the entire spirit and charac- 
ter of the Gospel as forbidding the supposition that it 
originated with wicked men ; its early successes and 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 41 

its permanent power and progress in the world ; its 
elevating influence on individual and social man 
whenever and wherever heartily received ; the celes- 
tial peace both for life and death which it has been 
found to carry to the heart, and finally its immeasur- 
able superiority to all other religions. It is, I say, 
with all these and various other similar items, that 
the believer in revelation constructs the argument 
on which he rests ; an argument rising, as he thinks, 
with the force of a mighty accumulation, to a degree 
of certainty that leaves nothing to be desired in order 
to complete conviction. While the lack of proof 
would, of course, be fatal, the lack of demonstration, 
it is plain, is only the lack of something that has no 
possible relation to such a matter. 

We need not refer particularly to other 'related 
truths of what is called revealed religion. The whole 
circle of spiritual doctrines, such as the Trinity, the 
incarnation, the atonement, the mission of the Holy 
Spirit, and others connected with these and resulting 
directly from them, so obviously belong to the sphere 
of moral reasoning, that the attempt to demonstrate 
them would be absurd, and of course to ask for de- 
monstration is unreasonable and weak. If you assume 
the existence and attributes of God as proved by 
moral reasoning, you may, indeed, deduce in a de- 
monstrative way from these as premises, some other 



42 DISCOURSES ON THE 

important truths respecting him ; and if on the same 
grounds, you accept revelation as established, you 
may apply, in a qualified sense, the demonstrative 
style of argument in the determination of its particu- 
lar doctrines. But in each case, since the premises 
rest on moral evidence, the certainty of the conclu- 
sions to which you are conducted will rest of course 
on moral evidence. Such are the laws of reasoning. 
Such is the unalterable nature of things. 

We have only to add lastly, that the power ol 
moral reasoning to produce conviction depends very 
materially on the state of the mind to which it is pre- 
sented ; while the power of demonstrative reasoning 
does not depend on this at all. Of course we mean 
the state of the mind as to its dispositions, prejudices 
and biases of every kind. This is a most essential 
point of difference between the two modes of settling 
truth, and must not be overlooked. Address the de- 
monstration of a geometrical problem to any person 
who is competent to understand it, and no precon- 
ceived opinion, no aversion to the truth or wish that 
it should be otherwise, no unwillingness from any 
cause to be convinced, did these exist in ever so great 
strength, can make the smallest difference as to ad- 
mitting the conclusion. The admission of it is abso- 
lutely and in the strictest sense compelled. The mind 



FOKMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 43 

has no power to hold back or to evade ; it must be- 
lieve, or lose its rationality. But the case is widely 
different when you essay by moral argument to lead 
a person to a conviction of any truth. In this case, 
as the process advances not from the necessary to the 
necessary, but from the probable to the probable, 
there is room, at every step, for the influence of per- 
sonal feeling and partial judgment, and aversion to 
the truth, to affect the force of proof to a very great 
degree. That, in fact, it does this often, is a matter 
of familiar observation. Moral evidence can have its 
proper force only when the mind is open, fair and 
honest; when divested of all prejudice, and truly 
willing and desirous to follow in the track of evidence 
and to accept the results to which it leads. Go to a 
young man who has acquired a love for the exhilara- 
ting glass, but as yet does not indulge to inebriety. 
Convince him 6f the danger of his habit — of the moral 
certainty there is that, sooner or later, his course will 
bring him to a dishonored grave. To offer him 
abundant proof that his path directly leads to such a 
termination, is the easiest thing imaginable ; but ac- 
tually to convince him, is, on the contrary one of the 
most difficult. His appetite, his inclination, his habit 
already formed, so blind and pervert his judgment, 
that your reasoning, conclusive though it be, is pow- 
erless upon him. Go to a person who is dishonest in 



44: DISCOUESES ON THE 

his dealings and daily puts in his pocket the gains of 
secret fraud. Repeat to him the adage that honesty 
is the best policy, as well as a high duty, and exhibit 
to him the proof. Your reasoning is sound and per- 
fectly conclusive ; but with him it has no weight. — 
He is under influences from the course of conduct lie 
pursues, which indispose his mind to receive convic- 
tion, and which really neutralize the power of evi- 
dence. So it may be in a thousand cases, so it may 
be in regard to all the great and vital questions of 
religion. Just so far as the mind, in its reasonings on 
these, is swayed by anything besides the love of 
truth ; just so far as it is indisposed by any opinion, 
passion or wishes of its own ; just so far it is unfitted 
to appreciate the moral reasonings by which they 
must of necessity be decided. It maj be, therefore, 
it is plain, that the fundamental truths of religion are, 
in fact, sustained by the highest and most decisive 
moral evidence, and yet some persons may be in such 
a state of mind in relation to these truths, that, to 
them, this evidence shall be ineffectual and nugatory. 
Those who are in a state of mind to see and appreci- 
ate the proof, may rest in them a well-established 
faith, while these, like men groping with shut eyes at 
noon-day, may be dark and bewildered in their 
scepticism. 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 45 

I have thus endeavored to explain the nature and 
laws of reasoning, so far as the general object we 
have in view demanded. We have seen that there 
is an essential difference between demonstrative and 
moral reasoning, which limits the application of each 
to a certain class of subjects ; that moral reasoning 
may bring the mind to sure conclusions, no less than 
demonstration ; that the great questions of religion do 
not admit of demonstration, but fall wholly within 
the spliere of moral proof; and finally that the force 
of this sort of proof will necessarily be very much af- 
fected by the state of mind that prevails at the time 
it is considered. 

The most important practical bearing of these views 
on the forming of religious opinions, will be shown in 
the following discourse. There is not time to enter 
on it now. I will simply ask you in closing for the 
present, to consider a moment how much is necessarily 
involved in the work of forming your opinions right- 
ly on the momentous subjects pertaining to religion. 
It is to be feared that too many young persons, even 
among the more intelligent, have little conception 
how great a work it is and how much serious, careful 
thought and earnest application of the mind is need- 
ed to accomplish it. Many of you, perhaps, have 
never once imagined that you had much to do in re- 



46 DISCOURSES ON THE 

lation to the matter. You have had a vague impres- 
sion, not improbably, that the Avhole affair was of 
course to be left to time and chance ; and that you 
had only to wait till you would see what these would 
bring. But if it is true, as you now cannot but per- 
ceive, that there is need of clear and accurate views 
as to the laws of reasoning, and of careful discrimina- 
tion in applying them ; if the mode of settling truth 
demanded by religious subjects, is that which sup- 
poses alike the highest activity and the best prepara- 
tion of the mind, then the task you have on hand is 
great and arduous , and must be very seriously attend- 
ed to, or it will not be accomplished. If your mind 
is filled with questionings, you will not get permanent 
relief, without serious and earnest thought, the use of 
such helps as may lie within your reach, and especial- 
ly an honest, heartfelt, daily application to the Foun- 
tain of all wisdom for divine illumination. It is al- 
ways an unfavorable symptom — alas, how often it 
appears — when, along with a state of doubt, there is 
seen an indisposition to sober and candid inquiry, 
and a want of seriousness and prayerfulness of mind, 
and unmistakable signs of a prejudiced uncandid tem- 
per. Truth will not reveal herself in her divine sim- 
plicity and beauty, her impressiveness and majesty, 
to those who have so little appreciation of her worth. 
Does it seem to any of you too great a task to search 



1 1 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 47 

for divine wisdom in the way which has been indi- 
cated? Are you unwilling to take the trouble to 
explore for yourselves, if doubts assail you, and that 
with an honest mind, the ground on which it is safe 
for you to rest? Are you inclined, to save yourselves 
the pains of fair examination, to give ear to the 
specious suggestions of those who manifest an earnest 
desire to overturn the religious opinions which have 
been cherished by the best and wisest of mankind, 
and which have inspired their souls for noble deeds, 
and have blessed them richly with inward peace, not 
only living, but even in death itself? The main 
truths of the Christian religion have undeniably stood 
unshaken against all attacks for near tAvo thousand 
years. This, of itself, affords a strong presumption 
that they are true, and is sufficient to justify you in 
refusing to accept, without the most thorough inquiry, 
the often superficial cavils of those who would reject 
them. It is certainly reasonable to look to the bot- 
tom of the matter if need be, and not to give them up 
without the most decisive reasons. 

ITor should any labor which may be needful in or- 
der to reach the truth in matters of religion appear 
excessive. "What ! Is not your rational nature the 
grand distinction of your being ? Is not the pursuit 
of truth, especially the highest and most spiritual 
forms of truth, the most worthy, the very noblest em- 



48 DISCOUESES ON THE 

ployment of such a mind as yours? Besides, what 
has become of those, in general, who have been con- 
tent, in indolent neglect, to leave their religious views 
to be moulded by accidental influences ? They have 
fallen, by thousands, into the miseries of perpetual 
doubt, and by thousands have perished in the inex- 
tricable entanglements of error. There is no safe al- 
ternative. You must learn the right^mode of reason- 
ing and apply it, you must read and reflect, not only 
with diligence and patience, but with a genuine hon- 
esty of mind ; or you cannot enjoy the pleasure and 
the peace of resting in clear views, with an abiding 
satisfaction ; but must run the dreadful hazard of 
dying in the wilderness of falsehood and delusion. 

Can it be that there is one of us, who is so 
slothful and senseless as not to be stirred by such 
considerations — who will not think it worth his while 
to reserve a portion of those hours now given to trivial 
reading and fruitless thought, to be devoted in good 
earnest to the right study of religion ? You will of 
course, if you are wise, obtain judicious counsel for 
the shaping of your inquiries, so far as you may need 
it ; but you will feel that you have personally a work 
to do. How can you be content, you especially 
whose eyes are glowing with the hidden fires of youth, 
and who feel in your bosoms the throbbings of an in- 
extinguishable life, till you are fully satisfied, if you 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 49 

have been in doubt, whence you came, whither you 
are going, for what you have a being, and which of all 
the paths about you, is for you the path of happiness 
and duty ? Attain a sure foundation in the great 
matter of religion, and the infinite advantage will be 
yours. ITeglect or fail to do it, and the darkness, the 
perplexity, the anguish which will ultimately come, 
it must be for you in your own persons to endure, 
without relief and without a comforter. Prove all 
things — hold fast that which is good ! 

3 



RESPONSIBILITY OF MEN FOR THEIR 
OPINIONS. 



John iii. 18. He that helieveth on hhn is not con- 
demned : hut he that helieveth not is condemned 
already J hecause he hath not helieved in the name 
of the only begotten Son of God. 

Every reader of the Scriptures is aware that belief 
in Jesus Christ, and in those essential truths which 
stand in immediate relation to human duty and 
happiness, is there continually insisted on as an 
imperative duty. It is so exhibited in the passage 
just recited. This is the work of God, said our Lord 
himself, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. 
He that believeth shall be saved, but he that helieveth 
not shall be damned. Of sin, because they believe 
not on me ; as though their unbelief were the very 
sum and essence of their sin. 

To say nothing now of the divine authority of tlie 
Scriptures, we may observe that their style of teachisg 



) I 



DISCOURSES, ETC. 61 

in reference to the duty of believing what may be 
known as true, is not at all peculiar. Every eminent 
moralist whether of ancient or modern times, whether 
in name a heathen or a Christian, has taught the 
same doctrine as to the duty of accepting ' the pri- 
mary truths of religion and morality ; those truths, 
that is, in respect to which, the attainment of satisfac- 
tory conclusions, was to be deemed a practicable 
thing. It is a remarkable fact, certainly, and one 
worthy to be specially considered, that the wisest 
and most candid men of all ages and all nations, 
when they have addressed mankind with a view to 
their improvement, have with one consent assumed, 
that the act of believing, of assenting heartily to 
such moral and religious truths as are or may be 
known, is a matter of positive and solemn obligation 
— something which men are bound, and may be 
authoritatively required to do. It would seem that a 
thing so generally admitted to be true, and that by 
the soundest and most thoughtful minds, must be in 
itself nearly or quite self-evident, or at most, must 
admit of easy proof. 

iLTotwithstanding, however, this so general agree- 
ment among the best teachers of mankind, there are 
many who are unwilling to allow that belief can be 
a matter of obligation, and unbelief a ground of 
blame. This, indeed, is one of the most common 



52 DISCOURSES ON THE 

subterfuges to which those who are avowed rejectors 
of revealed religion, and whose lives are at variance 
with its precepts, have been wont to betake them- 
selves. The well known case of Lord Byron affords 
an example in illustration. The wife of an English 
clergyman saw his lordship at a place of public resort, 
and filled with admiration of his brilliant powers, was 
very deeply affected at the thought of their perver- 
sion. Not long after, she died ; and her husband, on 
looking over her private papers after her decease, 
found among them a copy of a most simple and 
pathetic prayer in behalf of the noble poet, in which 
she entreated that he might be enlightened and 
guided from above, and learn to consecrate his extra- 
ordinary gifts to God. The husband enclosed this 
prayer in a letter to Byron, then at Pisa. For the 
moment it obviously touched his heart ; and his 
acknowledgment of it, is at once one of the most 
beautiful and one of the most creditable things he 
ever wrote. He evidently felt the reality and 
the worth of such a piety as that exhibited by the 
interesting stranger who had in secret breathed 
out to heaven for him so pure and fervent a supplica- 
tion ; and he frankly confessed that the Christian 
believer had reason to be of all men most blessed. 
To this confession, however, he adds immediately — 
" But a man's creed does not depend upon himself. 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 53 

"Who can say — I will believe tliis, that, or the other V^ 
This is the ground on which he rested his defence of 
his unbelief and its practical consequences, as exhib- 
ited in his life. He persuaded himself that he had 
no resj)onsibility for Ms oj)inions. It was no fault of 
his, he thought, that they were adverse to the Bible 
and its truths. He was merely passive in the matter. 
He could not change his views by an act of will. 

We cannot better represent a class than by this 
particular example. We are almost daily hearing 
the same apologj^ for doubt, or error, urged : — we are 
not responsible for our opinions. We cannot help 
believing as we do. We must believe according to 
the evidence we have. This too is said with apparent 
sincerity and confidence; and as if it admitted no 
reply. My present purpose is to examine the validity 
of t*his apology. In order to do this, let us look into 
it a little and see what it assumes. 

It is plain, in the first place, that those who assert 
that they are not responsible for their opinions, 
assume it to be trne that conviction in regard to 
religious truths must be compelled / in other words, 
that the certainty of these truths must be carried to 
the mind by evidence that is literally irresistable, or 
else they cannot be believed. They take it for 
granted that the law of belief is as simple and invari- 
able in its action as the law of gravitation. Attrac- 



64 DISCOIJESES ON THE 

tion drives the body to the earth, without the smallest 
influence of any choice, or the least room for any 
responsibility on its part ; evidence drives the mind 
to fixed conclusions by a like invincible necessity, 
and with the same absence of purpose or of will. 
Such is the view they take. 

But the truth of the matter is, that whatever of 
plausibilitv there may be in this assumption, arises 
from the confounding of things that differ. It is 
plain that those who make it, either designedly, or 
through ignorance and want of discrimination, con- 
found entirely the two widely diverse kinds of reas- 
oning by which truth in general is established, each 
having its own appropriate and exclusive sphere and 
being limited to a certain sort of truths. These two 
dissimilar kinds of reasoning, you will remember, we 
endeavored in the last discourse to distinguish clearly 
from each other. In taking it for granted that evi- 
dence in all cases must carry the conviction of the 
mind with the force of a felt necessity, the persons in 
question take it for granted, quite contrary to the 
fact, as we have seen, that all valid reasoning is 
demonstrative ; and that no proof is conclusive 
except that which carries the mind, with certainty at 
every step, to a result which is absolutely necessary. 
It is indeed true, that in the reasonings of the mathe- 
matician, if the process be correctly carried forward, 



FOEMATION OF KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 55 

the steps are certain and the conclusion iiTesistal)1e ; 
but this sort of reasoning, it was shown, is applicable 
only to tlie relations of numbers and of quantity — 
not at all to the truths of religion. To these last, as 
was explained, moral reasoning alone can rightly be 
applied ; in which, although complete conviction 
may be reached, there is neither certainty in all the 
steps, nor necessity in the conclusion. Let but the 
nature and the laws of reasoning, therefore, just be 
clearly understood, and it is seen at once to be wholly 
false that conviction in relation to moral and religious 
truths, must be compelled, in a literal sense, and 
without regard to the particular state of the mind 
itself. l!^o religious inquirer has any right to ask, or 
wait for a kind of proof , which is incompatible with 
the nature of the subject. Whoever does this clearly 
shows that he himself is either disingenuous and with- 
out an honest desire to learn, or else so careless as 
not to have considered what evidence he ought to 
look for. Lord Byron Y&rj well knew that he, and 
all men, daily formed conclusions the most positive 
and satisfying, and that where great interests were 
at stake, without anything like the evidence of 
demonstration — the evidence that must produce the 
same conviction, or certainty, in every mind, when 
rightly apprehended. He might have known, had 
he properly reflected, that all he had a right to ask, 



56 DISCOUESES ON THE 

was a sufficient amount of the same sort of evidence 
on which he acted in settling practical truth in the 
common affairs of life. He either imposed upon 
himself, therefore, or wished to impose on others by 
an insincere and sophistical evasion. The same must 
be true of all who attempt to stand upon the plea 
that belief can come only by irresistable necessity. 

The assertion that men are noti'esponsible for their 
opinions assumes also, in the next place, that passion, 
prejudice, and personal inclination and desires, have 
no influence on the reasonings and judgments of the 
mind, or else, that there is no responsibility attached 
to the existence of these affections. 

But is it true that the mind cannot be biased in its 
inquiries by its own passions, prejudices and wishes? 
Will any one seriously maintain a proposition so 
utterly at war with every day's experience and obser- 
vation, when once it is distinctly stated ? Take the 
case of the miser for example. Why is it so difficult 
to convince him that it is more blessed to give than 
to receive ? Is it that evidence is wanting of the 
essential meanness and the belittling effects of ava- 
rice ? Or is it that he is blinded by a passion that 
has gained full possession of his heart ? You have 
an enemy. Bring him, if you can, to do full justice to 
your character and conduct, in those particulars in 



FOKMATION OF EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 57 

which all others acknowledge them to be worthy of 
commendation, "What is the difficulty ? * His bitter- 
ness of heart, like stained glass that colors all the 
landscape, allows him to see you only in false lights. 
It leads him to prejudge whatever you say or do, and 
to condemn without inquiry. Your child comes to 
ask of you some indulgence on which his heart is set. 
Your judgment and experience decide at once that it 
is not proper to allow it. Is it then easy to convince 
him ? Will he weigh impartially your objections, 
with his own wishes on the other side, and pleading 
urgently against you ? A villain is about to commit 
a robbery or a murder. There are a hundred chances 
against one that he will be detected and made to 
suffer punishment.- How but through the deluding 
influence of his own desires and hopes, does he per- 
suade himself that the chances are greatly in favor 
of escape ? So in a thousand cases that will readily 
occur. If there is any thing in respect to men that 
is daily exemplified and universally admitted in the 
common affairs of life, it is this fact — that clear, con- 
vincing, ample evidence, on any subject, is likely to 
avail but little, when addressed to a mind whose 
prepossessions, feelings, and desires, are all against 
it. There is sure to be a bias, in such circumstan- 
ces, that is nearly or quite invincible. 

But since all this must be admitted, it will possibly 
3* 



68- DISCOURSES ON THE 

be said, tliat for these states of their feelings and 
their wishes, men are not to be held responsible, 
whatever their practical influence may be. It may 
be urged that every man is what he is, by the laws 
of his being, and by the force of circumstances ; and 
that the various biases which affect the action of the 
mind, are therefore to be regarded as inevitable — a 
misfortune and not a fault. 

Pray what then has become of man's voluntary 
nature ? Or in what sense is he an accountable 
creature and worthy of blame or praise ? If a 
person's ruling passions, his habitual dispositions and 
desires, are not essential elements of moral character, 
in what does character essentially consist ? If these 
do not depend for their existence either directly or 
indirectly upon his will, what is there that does 
depend upon his will, except just the motion of his 
muscles ? If men are not responsible for their pre- 
dominant passions, dispositions, and desires, then are 
they under the absolute control of a stern unbending 
fate; and no more fit to be held accountable for 
what they do than automata that move and speak 
when the master pulls the wire. Wq can disown 
responsibility for those states and habits of feeling by 
which our opinions and conduct are determined, only 
by disowning the highest attributes of our nature, 
and casting away the true glory of our being. 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 59 

Besides, if it be indeed the truth, that men are not 
responsible for the existence of those states of mind 
which bias and pervert the judgment, it is a truth 
which ought to be admitted and acted on in all other 
matters, as well as in what concerns religion. Admit 
it then, in cases like those to which we have referred. 
Admit that the miser cannot help being what he is, 
and deserves no censure ; that your child is blameless 
when he quarrels with yoar judgment ; your enemy 
when he detracts from your well known merits ; and 
the robber and the murderer when they commit their 
deeds of darkness. In all these cases, it is in the 
states of mind previously existing, that the false 
judgments and the infatuation originate, which im- 
pel to the wrong action ; and plainly, if there be no 
responsibility for the first, there can be none what- 
ever for the last. Such is the absurd result to which 
we come, if we affirm that men are not to be held 
responsible for their passions, prejudices, and wishes. 
It makes them blameless, however bad may be their 
conduct. 

It cannot, therefore, save us from being justly held 
responsible for our opinions, that the force of evi- 
dence is impaired, or neutralised, by our own 
improper states of mind. "Whoever brings to his 
religious inquiries any other than a humble, candid, 
willing mind — a mind that honestly desires to know 



60 DISCOURSES ON THE 

the truth, and is ready to receive it though it should 
be painful In its nature — will be nearly sure to be 
lost in error, and must take to himself the blame of 
all the evil consequences he may suffer. 

In the third place, the assertion that men are not 
to be held responsible for their opinions, assumes yet 
further, that they have no duty to perform in search- 
ing after evidence, and carefully weighing it when 
found. If no evidence that is satisfactory presents 
itself, it is imagined there can, of course, be no obli- 
gation to believe. If there be a God, and he wishes 
that mankind should believe in his being and attri- 
butes, and in other kindred truths, it belongs to him, 
it is taken for granted, not merely to furnish the evi- 
dences of these things, but actually, by his immediate 
agency, to set them in order before men's minds, and 
to cause them to be thoroughly known and understood. 
The whole care of producing belief in this view, 
belongs to God. It is something to be wrought in 
them, without any toil or thought of theirs, as the 
sensation of warmth is produced by the solar rays, or 
by the presence of a fire. 

But this view is wholly wrong. ]^o one has any 
right to take for granted, that if God wishes him to 
believe particular truths relating to himself, or to his 
service, he will so set the evidence before his eyes 



FORMATION OF KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 61 

that he cannot choose but see it. It is one of the 
high distinctions of our being that our intellectual 
powers are specially adapted to the pursuit of truth. 
The very constitution of our nature thus indicates it 
as our duty to engage in this pursuit ; to apply our 
minds, actively, and earnestly, to the work of investi- 
gation, as opportunity is offered. "We need no power 
to search for truth, to explore the sources of proof, 
and push inquiry to its utmost limits, if our only 
business is to believe when we cannot help it — when 
we are actually overpowered with evidence collected 
for us by other agency than ours and pressed on our 
passive minds. Yet further, we may ask — how is it, 
as a matter of experience, in the manifold concerns 
of life in which our interests are involved ? In how 
many of all the cases in which we form opinions, is it 
true that we have nothing to do in collecting, arrang- 
ing, and comparing evidence ? How large a part of 
the care and labor involved in almost every import- 
ant branch of business, consists in doing these very 
things ? 

Suppose, for example, you should call upon a far- 
mer, and find him quietly sitting in his house with 
folded hands in the midst of seed-time ; and that, on 
asking the reason of his conduct, he should coolly tell 
you that he had no opinion formed as yet, as to what 
kind of grain was best adapted to his soil ; but that 



62 DISCOUESES ON THE 

he was waiting for proof to present itself and settle 
his uncertainty. Suppose you find a merchant suf- 
fering his vessel to lie rotting at the wharf, because 
not having done anything to ascertain the truth, he 
has come to no conclusion as to whether or not it 
will be best to dispatch her on a voyage. You would 
surely thinik that men who, in such affairs, should 
take such ground, had either lost their senses, or that 
they were always fools. But how would the absurd- 
ity of such a course be greater, than that exhibited 
by one who when you ask him of his views in respect 
to God, religion and immortality, replies with uncon- 
cern that he has no settfed views about these things, 
and that he is quietly waiting till evidence shall come 
to him, and settle finally his doubts ? What is there 
so peculiar in subjects of a religious nature, that the 
common rules of action are not to be applied to them? 
That while the merchant, the farmer, and the artizan 
must set themselves, with diligence and enterprise, to 
collect and arrange the means of settling their opin- 
ions, in their ordinary secular affairs, or be regarded 
as having lost their sanity ; they may go on through 
life, doing nothing in good earnest to obtain the evi- 
dence that should give them certainty as regards their 
highest interests and duties, — ^those connected with 
religion — and incur no such suspicion ? There is no 
reason for any such distinction. The principle in 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 63 

eacli case, and of course the follj, is tho same. In all 
the great concerns which involve our duty and our 
welfare, — in those of religion not less, certainly, than 
others — we are under imperative obligations to do 
our utmost to lay hold of, and thoroughly to under- 
stand, the evidence on which correct opinions must 
be founded. We must do this, or remain in uncer- 
tainty, and quite probably endure the miseries that 
result from fatal error. 

Finally, when it is said that men are not responsible 
for their opinions, it is obviously assumed that they 
lack something, either light, or faculties or opportu- 
nity, the giving of which is necessary to render them 
responsible. If they want nothing which they now 
have not, to render them responsible, then certainly 
they are responsible. We need not stop to consider 
how far the responsibility of the degraded and be- 
nighted portions of mankind may be modified by their 
peculiar circumstances. We are speaking, in all this 
discussion, of civilized men who live surrounded with 
the means of culture and of knowledge. In all cases, 
and of com'se in relation to religious subjects, it is 
true that two things are necessary to the formation of 
an intelligent opinion, viz : a proper amount of evi- 
dence, and an amount of intellectual power which, if 
rightly used, is sufficient to understand it. K on any 



64: DISCOUESES ON THE 

subject, I neither have, nor can have, any fit means 
of forming an opinion, then all will of course agree 
that no obligation to form one can possibly exist ; and 
so likewise, incompetency, — the want of understand- 
ing to appreciate the force of arguments, — must ne- 
cessarily forbid the idea of any such obligation. The 
plea of incompetency is not likely to be urged. If 
men are competent to think, examine and decide, in 
regard to other things, they are competent to think, 
examine and decide, in regard to religious truth. 
The plea of want of evidence, if urged in relation to 
the essential truths pertaining to religion, is certainly 
not valid. It would seem, apart from facts, utterly 
incredible that no sufficient means of forming an opin- 
ion, either one way or the other, should exist, where 
the matter is so important ; and then it is actually 
found that vast multitudes, and among them minds of 
the very highest order, do recognise the leading doc- 
trines both of natural and revealed religion, as being 
sustained by ample proofs — proofs which produce in 
them the most unwavering conviction. Those too 
who have examined most thoroughly and with the 
greatest impartiality and candor, have borne the 
strongest testimony to the fulness and completeness 
of the testimony by which these primary doctrines 
are established ; while, on the contrary, those who 
allege a want of proper evidence, are generally those 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 65 

who liave exhibited the least of either diligence or 
candor in their inquiries. That some, on the other 
hand, have decidedly rejected the essential truths of 
religion cannot certainly be urged as proof that no 
means of forming positive opinions, could be found. 
They have found evidence, they profess, against the 
truth of what are deemed to be the first truths of re- 
ligion and have settled their opinions on this basis. 
There is really no want of evidence, therefore, to 
those who will carefully and honestly inquire, even 
by the admission of such as have rejected all religious 
truths. Those who have received these truths, say 
they have found evidence sufficient in theu' favor ; 
those who reject them — that they have found enough 
on the other side. According to both, there is no 
lack of the means of forming settled opinions, and 
nothing to justify a doubtful and unsettled state. 
Since, therefore, there is nothing wanting in order to 
make you, or me, or others about us responsible for our 
opinions, we must be held responsible for these, as 
truly as for our conduct. We have evidence within 
our reach ; and we may find and use it, if we will. 
There is nothing in the way of any of us, but an indis- 
position to apply ourselves, with a serious pur]30se and 
an honest mind ; and this surely cannot relieve us from 
the obligation to find the truth and to embrace and 
hold it. 



66 DISCOURSES ON THE 

It appears then, upon tlie whole, that the position 
that men are not responsible for their opinions as re- 
gards the main truths of religion, will not stand the 
test of a fair examination. It is based on assump- 
tions that are false. It overlooks the difference 
between demonstrative and moral reasoning ; the 
influence of the moral state of the mind upon its judg- 
ments ; the need there is of care and pains in order 
to arrive at truth ; and the fact that, at least those 
who are reared in the midst of Christian civilization, 
have both intellect and evidence enough, if they will 
rightly use them in the search for truth, to enable 
them to reach it. All this we have clearly seen. 

When, therefore, it is said that " a man's creed 
does not depend upon himself," — the reply is, that in 
the sense in which it is meant to be understood, the 
assertion is not true. It is plain that those w^ho put 
in this plea are either self-deceived, or else willing to 
use this shield against what they know too well to be 
the shafts of truth. The means of knowledge being 
given, and the ability to examine and decide, it does 
depend on every man to determine whether he, as an 
individual, will know the truth or not. K for want 
of due reflection, we ask for demonstration where the 
nature of the case does not admit it, and refuse to 
believe without, we must take the blame of doing it. 
If we sufl'eT our personal feelings and desires to warp 



FORMATloisr OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 67 

and blind us, when we ought to be single minded, 
we must take the blame of doing it. If we are too 
indifferent, or too heedless, to examine the proofs that 
actually exist and may be found by proper effort, we 
must take the blame of doing it. If we wait for some- 
thing to be done for us, or something to be given us, 
to fill up the measure of our responsibility, when 
nothing really is wanting, we must take the blame 
of doing it. It would be just as near the truth to say 
that a man's actions do not depend upon himself, as 
to affirm this of his opinions in respect to the more 
elementary religious truths. 

" But who can say " — it is asked — " I will believe 
this, that, or the other ?" Observe the sophistry in- 
volved in this inquiry — as though there could be no 
way of doing voluntarily, and in the use of our own 
powers, what cannot be done by a simple act of will ! 
Suppose it were pressed on me as a duty to visit, for 
some good purpose, a distant place ; and that I should 
answer — " Who can say I will be in this, that, or the 
other place " — as if I supposed it meant that I should 
put myself there at once by simply willing it. You 
would justly pronounce it a mere quibble ; for no one 
would think of asking me to do any such thing as 
that. I cannot, indeed, transport myself to a distant 
place by an effort of my will ; but I can use my pow- 
ers and means to go, if I am so disposed. 1 cannot 



68 DISCOURSES ON THE 

will myself directly into the belief of any truth ; but 
I can rightly use my powers and means to come to a 
clear conviction of it. This makes me just as much 
responsible for my belief, as though I could will 
helief^ as directly as I will to lift my arm. So com- 
mon sense does certainly decide. 

It is altogether in vain then, that we endea- 
vor to comfort ourselves in a state of doubt or er- 
ror, with the persuasion that we are not responsible 
for our opinions. We are responsible ! In matters 
of such moment as religion ; on questions of such 
magnitude as those relating to the existence and attri- 
butes of God, the immortality of the soul, and the 
reality of revelation ; to the great rules of human 
duty, the way of being permanently happy, and the 
certainty of future retribution ; there inust be means 
of arriving at jB.xed conchisions — we cannot think it 
otherwise without doing violence to our own reason 
and the instincts of our own souls — and it must be a 
high abuse of our rational endowments, to neglect or 
to misuse these means. 

If any of you say that you have not hitherto been 
able, and are not able now, to reach results that sat- 
isfy you, then you are bound to show beyond all 
doubt, that the fault is not in you — that you have 
approached religious subjects as you ought, and with- 
out prejudice or bias, have done your utmost to come 



FORMATION OF KELIGIOTIS OPINIONS. 69 

to fixed and just conclusions. Can you say this, O 
doubter, if there be one such in this assembly? Do 
you not rather feel in the depths of your secret soul, 
on the bare proposing of the question, that you have 
been most culpably neglectful and careless in the 
matter? Within yourself then lies the difficulty. 
Until with a truly childlike, open, earnest mind, you. 
have tasked your highest powers and failed^ you can- 
not rid yourself of the vast responsibility of being 
firmly fixed in right religious opinions. God, who 
has given you such power of thought, such inward 
light of reason, and such outward means of knowl- 
edge — ^who every day and hour is speaking to you, 
through all the beauty and wisdom and grandeur of 
the universe ; in the stupendous march of his eternal 
Providence ; in the monitions of conscience, and the 
deep instinctive yearning of your immortal nature ; 
and, as the wisest and the best of all mankind believe, 
in a positive revelation, by which a glorious stream 
of light from out the ineffable splendors of his throne, 
has fallen on your way, and a voice of infinite sweet- 
ness from the bosom of his love has spoken to your 
soul — tliis God, who knows you, and cares for you, 
and will sit at last to judge your conduct, according 
to all that he has done to elevate and bless you — • 
must hold you, does hold you, will hold you in the 
day of his great award of retribution, responsible for 



70 DISCOURSES ON THE 

your belief, or unbelief, in relation to his being and 
your duty as his creature. He bids you search for 
wisdom, as for rubies, and promises divine illumin- 
ation to all who humbly ask it. It is for you then to 
determine, as you will answer for yourself to Him, 
whether you will know and love the truth and be the 
children of the light. 

" Faith is the subtle chain 

That binds us to the Infinite ; the voice 
Of a deep life that will remain 
JJnka we crowd it thmoi /" 



THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF OPINIONS. 



Fkov. xxiii. 23. Buy the truth and sell it not. 

It is a saying of our blessed Lord himself, that the 
children of this world are wise in their generation. 
By this he meant that, in the common affairs of life, 
they exhibit shrewdness and discernment in consult- 
ing their own interests. If there be anything which 
they regard as valuable and believe to be within their 
reach, they spare no pains or effort in order to obtain 
it ; and when once they have satisfied themselves that 
any particular possession will be of permanent advan- 
tage, they are ready to buy it at any price, and when 
bought, they steadily refuse to part with it again. 
This is sound worldly wisdom ; sound wisdom, that is, 
in regard to worldly things. 

Precisely the same course the wisest of men enjoins 
in relation to the acquiring and the retaining of the 
truth — of all truth, but more especially that which 
(71) 



72 DISCOTJESES ON THE 

directly pertains to the highest and most enduring 
welfare of mankind. Truth of this sort is of inestim- 
able value. It is a pearl of great price ; more pre- 
cious than rubies ; and he is the happiest of men who 
buys, never to sell it again, although he part with all 
he has to make the purchase. This, on the bare 
statement, would seem to be too obvious to be insisted 
on in the way of argument. One would as soon ex- 
pect to hear the worth of gold and diamonds disputed, 
as to hear any question raised as to the worth of reli- 
gious truth. 

But there is hardly any thing so plain in respect to 
human duty, that a wrong state of moral feeling may 
not cause it to be doubted, or even to be denied ; and 
strange as it may seem, it is an every day occurrence 
to hear the value of truth itself disputed. It is com- 
mon to hear those who are drifting about in loose un- 
certainty, gravely advance the sentiment that religious 
opinions, convictions as to what is true and real in 
matters of religion, are of but very little consequence ; 
and having, in the last discourse, shown the futility 
of the plea that men are not responsible for their 
opinions, we will now examine the kindred allegation 
that opinions are of no practical importance. It is 
usually stated thus: — "It is no matter what a man 
believes, if his life is only right." The assertion 
sounds as familiar, and even trite, as though it were 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 73 

one of the plainest imaginable truths ; and yet it will 
appear on examination to be one of the most glaring 
and self-evident of falsehoods. It will be seen to be 
very much as if it should be said — " It is no matter 
whether a man have eyes or not, provided only that 
he can see!" To act right without knowledge is 
hardly less a practicable thing, than to see without 
the proper organs. 

For consider what is necessary to be done in order 
to prove the position true that it is no matter what a 
man believes on religious subjects if his life be right. 
It must be shown either, first, that there are no cer- 
tain truths pertaining to religion ; or else, secondly, 
that these truths have no necessary connection with 
the conduct of men ; or else, thirdly, that the conse- 
quences of their conduct, whether right or wrong, 
will be the same. 

We ask, then, in the first 2^1ace, how it can be 
shown that there are, in religion, no fixed, unchange- 
able facts ; that there is no nature and constitution of 
things which exists as positive reality? In physical 
science — the science of material nature — it is acknow- 
ledged that there are facts, truths, laws ; and is it to 
be believed, is it in any way capable of proof, that in 
the universe of mind and the sj)here of moral science, 
there are no such things — no realities, or at least none 
that can be known % Pray let us have the proof, you 

4 



T4: DISCOUESES ON THE 

who take this remarkable position. It will be very 
singular indeed, should you be able to make out, that 
while there are indisputable certainties in all other 
departments of our knowledge, there are none in that 
which includes the spiritual nature and relations of 
our being, and our best and highest, because our eter- 
nal, interests. Let us look at the matter a little in 
detail, in order that what we mean may be clearly 
understood. 

We will draw an illustration from commerce. You 
have great interests, we will suppose, involved in this. 
You freight your ships for distant places and dispatch 
them, calculating, under certain conditions, on such 
and such results. In this affair, there are, you very 
well know, certain fixed and unalterable facts, or 
truths — things which can be known definitely and 
fully. As to the sea, for example, it is a fact that it 
has a determinate shape and size ; that it has its ebb 
and flow of tides ; that it has its Gulf Stream and 
other well known currents ; that rocks and shoals are 
hidden in its bosom ; and that its condition is vari- 
ously aifected by the action of storm and wind. As 
to the winds themselves it is a fact that in some re- 
gions they are variable, in others constant in their 
direction ; that at some seasons and in some places, 
they are sure to be tempestuous, and in others certain 
to be calm ; that at one time the land breeze may be 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. «5 

counted on, and at another tlie opposite ; and lastly, 
that the rise or fall of the barometer, betoken particu- 
lar changes of the weather. As to the ship, in any 
given case, she is known to have a certain capacity, 
or to be of a certain burthen; her sails and rigging 
have a certain relation to her size ; she requires, with 
a given freight, a certain depth of water ; with a cer- 
tain amount of pressure she will attain a particiilar 
speed ; and a certain number of hands are required 
to man her. She carries a chart ; it is the result of 
careful and accurate surveys. She has a compass ; it 
obeys a well known law with certain slight variations 
that have been ascertained and noted. And so we 
might go on. 

Let it be observed, then, that in so ordinary a mat- 
ter as the sending of a ship to a foreign port, all these, 
and many other things, are recognized as necessarily 
existing facts. They are involved in the very nature 
of the transaction. They are the truths pertaining to 
the case ; and should any one assert to you that in 
this commercial enterprise, there were no facts, or 
truths, involved, you would simply think him wanting 
in common sense. 

But here are multitudes of intelligent creatures who 
have entered oq the great arena of existence. They 
must think, they must feel, they must act, they must 
permanently enjoy or suffer. They have a conscious 



76 DISCOUESES ON THE 

capacity for religious responsibilities; a conscience 
wliich recognizes tlie diiFerence between right and 
wrong, and feels the obligation of tlie former ; and a 
sense of dependence and of restlessness within the 
heart, which seems to be the expression of constitution- 
al religious wants. As these beings could not have 
given themselves existence, they acknowledge a Cre- 
ator. As they are frail and in many respects helpless, 
they naturally conceive themselves to be connected 
with him as objects of his care and providence. It 
seems a reasonable thought that they must owe him 
some important duties, that he must have had some 
object in giving them existence, and must, of course, 
liave some choice as to what they shall be and do. 
It is difficult for them not to think that it must make 
some difference in their feelings and condition, wheth- 
er they act according to his design, or in opposition 
to it, and whether their religious cravings are satis- 
fied or not. Therefore it would appear as though 
there are, of necessity, implied in the very existence 
and relations of these creatures certain definite and 
niost essential facts ; certain things which are true 
and real and may be ascertained and known to be so. 
But you will ha^^'e it that there are no realities in 
matters of religion ; no facts, that is, which exist in 
the nature of things and which may be either revealed 
or laid open to observation. Then clearly it belongs 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 77 

to you to sliow, to prove beyond dispute and against 
the reason and consciousness and common sense of 
men, that there is no Creator, that man is not a de- 
pendent creature, that he has no spiritual nature, tliat 
his moral instincts and judgments are all alike illusive, 
that he has no moral obligations of any sort whatever, 
and that there is no difference between right and 
wrong. These appear to be the primary facts of re- 
ligion just as the existence of the sun and planets, 
with their mutual relations and the law of gravitation, 
are the primary facts of astronomy. Disprove the ex- 
istence of the sun and planets and gravitation, and 
astronomical science will be effectaally demolished. 
Disprove the being of God and of the soul, their re- 
lations to each other, and the essential distinction be- 
tween moral good and evil, and you will as effectually 
demolish all religion. Yon w^ill hardly undertake to 
do so much as this. Nothing but sheer atheism, and 
that but very rarely, has attempted to go so far. 

It is plain that the very notion of religion supposes 
certain things to be true, as matters of fact and as be- 
ing necessarily recognized as true and real, unless re- 
ligion itself be abjured as a chimera. Man has a 
certain moral nature, he lias certain moral relations, 
these give rise to certain duties, and his actions, con- 
sidered as right or wrong, are connected with certain 
fixed, results. Tliese facts, as existing in the nature 



78 DISCOUESES ON THE 

of things, are not clianged by our misapprehensions 
and wrong beliefs about them when we wander into 
error. They are unalterable realities. There are 
such realities in the moral world not less than in the 
natural. 

We come then to the other side of the alternative. 
"We ask, in the second place, how it can be shown 
that the actually existing facts, the real truths in re- 
gard to the religious interests and obligations of man- 
kind, have no necessary connection with their moral 
conduct ? This is what is taken for granted in the 
plea for unsettled, or wrong opinions, which we are 
now considering. When it it said that it is no matter 
what a man believes if his life be only right, it is said, 
in effect, that a man's belief has no determining in- 
fluence on his conduct ; that his opinions, his views of 
truth, are one affair, and his actions quite another ; for 
if opinions do influence the conduct, do even, as the 
rule at least, determine it, then it is not and cannot 
be true that it is immaterial what they are. 

Let us go back to our commercial illustration. Let 
us see how it would answer to assume in the supposed 
affair of dispatching a vessel to a foreign port, that it 
is no matter what a man believes. Let us see wheth- 
er there is not of necessity an inseparable connection 
between the opinions of the master of the vessel and 



FOKMATION OF EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 79 

his conduct — whether his views of facts can be radi- 
cally wrong, and yet his course of conduct be all 
right. How is it then ? Your Captain has a fixed 
belief as to the distance he has to run, as to the strength 
and direction of the currents, as to the position of 
banks and ledges, as to the laws which regulate the 
wind and weather, as to the capacities of his ship and 
the supplies which he requires, as to the correctness 
of his chart and the accuracy of his compass. He has 
certain established opinions or convictions in respect 
to all these and many similar things. What think 
you, then — have his opinions, or have they not, an in- 
fluence on his conduct ? Do they, or do they not, af- 
fect his mode of planning and executing the voyage 
to be performed ? Apply the adage — It is no matter 
what he believes, if his conduct be but right ! Ah, 
yes ! but let him believe the opposite of what is ac- 
tually true. Let him honestly believe that his proper 
course is east when really his port lies west ; let him 
entertain the opinion that the prevailing currents are 
setting southward, when in fact they are setting to 
the north, let him persuade himself that his ship is 
twice as strong as she is in truth, and that she draws 
but half the water that she actually does ; let him have 
confidence in an inaccurate chart and adopt too little 
or too mncli as the variation of the needle. "With 
these views, which are directly contrary to the facts, 



80 DISCOURSES ON THE 

will bis conduct — can his conduct by any possibility 
be tlie same as if he believed in accordance with the 
facts ? Will not his opinions determine his conduct 
in the case and of necessity make it wrong ? Can any 
one suppose, without a sense of the absurdity of such 
a supposition, that his actions can be right as regards 
his voyage, while his opinions, his judgment as to es- 
sential facts, are altogether wrong. 

But in matters of religion, it may be said, the case 
is different. Pray be so kind as to tell us how, if vou 
are able. The soul is certainly a thing which has a 
nature and qualities of its own, as truly as a ship. 
It is just as truly fitted for some purposes, and 
unfitted for others, by its very constitution. It is 
made capable of finding happiness in certain things, 
and not in others. In a certain course of action, its 
faculties expand ; it rises in the scale of being, and 
seems to exist for a noble end ; in an opposite course 
it degenerates and grovels, and appears to live for no 
important purpose. It is competent to know God 
and to love and obey him ; and when it does this it 
has peace within itself. When it fails to do this, it 
feels inwardly dissatisfied and restless ; and gener- 
ally, in the doing of what is right it has a sense of 
pleasure, and in the doing of what is wrong a con- 
sciousness of pain. These are existing facts in respect 
to the human soul, considered as having a moral 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIGNS. 81 

nature and relations. Take any individual man, 
these facts are true of him ; and we will suppose that 
he believes them fully. He believes that he has a 
responsible soul ; that it must iind its happiness in a 
certain way, or not at all ; that right and wrong are 
immutably distinct, the one connected necessarily 
with pleasure, and the other as necessarily with 
pain ; that God as his Creator, and as the infinitely 
Wise and Good, is entitled to his love and his obedi- 
ence, and will reward or punish him, according 
as he renders these, or not. Is it conceivable that 
the belief of these should have no influence on 
his conduct ? Believing them with firm conviction, 
will his course of living be just the same as if he did 
not believe them ? Is it just the same, so far as his 
actions are concerned, whether he believes that he 
has an immortal nature, or believes that he has none ? 
AYhether he thinks that the love and pursuit of what 
is pure and good will make him happy, or of what is 
corrupt and evil ? "Whether he concludes that he is 
accountable to God and a subject of reward or pun- 
ishment, or that he has no responsibility at all? 
whether he thinks that virtue and vice are moral 
opposites, or that there is nothing to choose between 
them ? This is what you say, however unconsciously, 
when you assert that it is no matter what a man 
believes, if his life be only right. You say that his 

4^ 



82 DISCOURSES ON THE 

opinions have 7W relation to his life. You say that in 
order to act according to the nature of his soul, it is 
no matter whether he believes that he has a soul ! 
That in order to do right it is no matter whether he 
believes that there is any such thing as right ! That 
in order to meet his responsibilities to God, it is no 
matter whether he believes that he is responsible at 
all, or even whether there be a God or not ! A 
man's opinions and his life are wholly independent 
of each other. His opinions may be all wrong, all 
contrary to the actual facts, and his course of action 
none the less all right ! 

What, then, we would like to be informed, deter- 
mines a man's course of action, what leads him to act 
as he does act, if his views of things do not ? A 
thoughtful child can see that it is a man's views of 
things, his opinions, what he believes, that mainly 
determines his character and conduct, and make his 
course of life just what it is. When appetite and 
inclination draw men . away to evil, they do this 
mainly through their perverting influence on the 
judgment persuading them to accept the false as 
true — to believe wrong and then act wrong. To 
talk of a man's believing wrong, as to essential truths 
or facts, and at the same time acting right, is to talk 
absurdly. It is of the highest moment that a man's 
belief accord with the reality of things, because unless 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 83 

it does, he cannot act according to the reality of 
things ; his life cannot be right. It may possibly be 
right in its outward seeming, but in its real spirit and 
aims, it will be wrong. 

Bnt since it cannot be denied, with any show of 
reason, that a man's actions depend essentially on his 
opinions, and will be mainly determined by them, 
the third alternative may be adopted. It may be 
said, it has been often said, that if one only thinks 
that he is acting right, it will make no difference in 
the end, the result to him will be just the same, 
whether he really acts right or not. If a man believe 
wrong, and act wrong in the whole moral ordering of 
his life, so he do this but sincerely, no serious harm 
will follow. In some way or other it will come out 
about as well as if he had believed and done precisely 
what he ought. 

But what is this, w^hen you examine it, but the 
palpably false assertion that^actions have no natural 
and necessary consequences? Actions are causes, 
whose effects follow with the certainty of inexorable 
law, according to the established moral order of the 
universe. It is a part of the nature of things, that 
believing right and acting right, each human being 
will certainly reap the rewards of his well doing ; but 
that believing wrong and acting wrong, each must 



84 DISCOURSES ON THE 

inevitably encounter tlie consequences of his error. 
It is this that gives its highest importance to a man's 
religious belief. As that determines his character 
and conduct, so it mlist finally determine his destiny 
of happiness or woe. 

We have only to try the notion that the consequen- 
ces of right and wrong action may be in the end the 
same, in any concern of common life to see how ab- 
surd it is. Hefer again, if you please, to commerce. 
If ever so sincerely, your Captain believes that Cuba 
lies in the Mediterranean sea or in the Indian Ocean, 
will he therefore find it there ? If he sincerely thinks 
that there are five fathoms of water on a bar, when 
in fact there is but one, will that prevent the striking 
of his vessel ? Or if it is his opinion that his cable is 
sound and strong when really it is rotten, will that 
prevent him, when the tempest rages, from being 
swept from his moorings and dashed a wreck upon the 
rocks ? If he does not regard the facts as they actual- 
ly exist, there is nothing that can prevent the conse- 
quences of his ignorance. The case is in no wise dif- 
ferent in the matter of religion. In this, as in other 
things, facts are facts whatever we may think about 
them. If sin by the nature of things does lead to 
misery, and a man ever so sincerely believes that it 
leads to happiness, it will lead to misery still. If a 
man build his house — the edifice of his immortal 



FORMATION OF KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 85 

hopes — on the shifting sand, persuading himself that 
he builds on solid rock, it wiil none the less for his 
sincerity in error, fall with a terrible destruction, when 
the rain descends and the winds blow and the floods 
come. If a man convince himself that he can live 
without God and be happy, while it is true that God 
alone can meet his spiritual wants, he will yet be sure 
to feel at last the anguish of an empty and wretched 
heart. Such is the nature of things and such it will 
be, whatever one believes. Is it then, no matter what 
a man believes? Is it just as safe and just as well at 
last, to be in error as to understand the truth — to act 
against the laws of our own nature and of the moral 
universe, as to act in accordance with them ? If so, 
the more complete the blindness and delusion in 
which men sink and keep themselves the better ; for 
they escape by this means all anxiety about the truth 
and in the end come off as well. A conclusion so ab- 
horrent to reason and right thinking, who can be will- 
ing to admit ? 

The result, then, to which we are brought is this : 
that it is not to be expected that the conduct, the lives 
of men, will be materially better than their opinions. 
Of course in all that we have said, we have intended 
to refer not to the opinions men profess, but to the 
actual living convictions of their minds. These we 



86 DISCOURSES ON THE 

have seen, do stand in direct and determining relation 
to their actions ; and tlfeir actions to certain natural 
and necessary consequences, so that it may be said, 
with little qualification, that a man's religious opinions, 
his real views of religious truth, do in fact decide his 
character and fix his destiny, as a moral and account- 
able being ; that as these are true or false, the man, 
in any case, will be good or bad in his moral conduct, 
and happy or miserable in his ultimate condition. 

It is plainly, therefore, an imperative duty to set a 
high value upon truth, in our religious thinking. 
Of what vast importance it is seen to be, that 
your religious opinions should not only be firmly 
fixed, but that they should also be riglit opinions ! — 
As it is indispensable to the welfare of the body that 
you have right opinions as to what is wholesome food 
and what is poison, what exercise and regimen are 
salutary and what sure to prove pernicious, even so, 
you perceive, it is in relation to the soul. Acting on 
the false and dangerous maxim that it is no matter 
what a man believes, you are every moment liable to 
embrace such errors as will, by their practical in- 
fluence and effects, poison the fountains of your im- 
mortal happiness and prostrate the health and vigor 
of your immortal powers. If on the great voyage of 
existence, you trust a lying chart, a deceitful compass 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 87 

and a treacherous pilot, nothing can save you from 
the woes of fatal wreck. Wrong ways lead infallibly 
to ruin, whatever they may think that travel in them. 
Right ways lead infallibly to safety, whatever they 
may think that turn their backs upon them. Be sure, 
my fellow-mortal, — since your duty and your person- 
al well-being alike demand it of you — be sure that in 
forming your religious opinions you dig deep and 
build on the rock of eternal truth. 

But perhaps the thought or at least the feeling, 
arises in your mind that it is too much trouble to as- 
certain the truth. You have done nothing hitherto, 
in serious earnest, towards learning what it is, be- 
cause there is so much to be done. Strange apathy 
and inconsistency, where so much is at stake ! The 
artizan cannot rest till he learns all the important facts 
about his art. The merchant never faints in his ef- 
forts to find out all the principles and laws of trade. 
The farmer perseveres till he has informed himself on 
all important points about his farm. But in respect 
to God and immortality — to the nature, relations and 
destiny of the ever-living soul within you, you are 
content to be in ignorance and to think nothing on 
the subject, or only in the way of idle speculation ! 
In this way some of you may have lived for many 
years. God has given you ample means, instructions, 
books and wise religious counsellors, yet here vou are, 



88 DISOOUESES ON THE 

in the same condition still, all uncertainty and doubt, 
and strangest of the whole, quite unconcerned about 
your state ! 

But, time the mean while — I beg you to consider 
it — has not been standing still. It has been silently 
sweeping on with a mighty current towards the shad- 
ows of the unseen world, and bearing you forward on 
its bosom. Yet a little longer, and even for you who 
are in the strength of your early years, eternity 
will open with the expanse of its everlasting 
ages. It will find you as you are, the child- 
ren of darkness and not of light, unless you bestir 
yourselves right soon ; and. Oh ! rely upon it, you 
will find at last, that there are real facts pertaining 
to your soul, and to its duties and destinies forever 
which it was of infinite importance for you to have 
known betimes. You will see clearly then that the 
difference between religious truth and error, was as 
wide as that between eternal life and death — ^between 
heaven itself and hell. See to it, I pray you^ that 
you have not then to look back, with the anguish of 
a bitter self-reproach, on neglected opportunities, and 
an unprofitable and wasted life. 

Ah — the truth ! — the truth in relation to ourselves, 
our duty, our happiness, as the rational creatures of 
God — it is indeed the richest of all gems ! Buy it, 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 89 

you wlio are young — buy it all of yon, at any price, 
and never let it go. Error will sooner or later perish ; 
and tliey wlio trust in it will perisli with it. But 
Tbuth shall change and pass away, only when God 
himself shall die ! 



BELIEF IN THE BEING OF GOD. 



Vs. xiv. 1. The fool hath said in his heart — There 
is no God. 

A BELIEF in God, as a self-existent, intelligent, and 
infinitely perfect Being, is the basis of all religion. 
Law, supposes a lawgiver ; accountability, a governor 
and judge ; and worship, a real object of affection and 
devotion. If there were no God, there would be, to 
the human race, no right and wrong, no feeling of 
moral obligation, no virtue, no vice, no piety ; nothing 
to constitute a moral nature, or to call forth moral ac- 
tion. The sole impulses which could operate to move 
men, on such a supposition, would be instinct, and 
expediency considered in reference to self-interest. 

It is not, however, enough, that we admit the 

divine existence. It is highly desirable, not only 

to entertain a firm conviction that God exists, 
(90) 



DISCOTJKSES, ETC. 91 

but, also, clearly to understand, if possible, in what 
manner, or through what means, we come by this con- 
viction. On this point there has been much discus- 
sion, and widely different views, among the philoso- 
phers and thinking men of every age. Some have main- 
tained the idea of God to be innate ; as Cicero for exam- 
ple, who says :* Omnibus enim innatum est, et in animo 
quasi insGulptum — that it is inborn in all men, and as 
it were engraven on the mind. Others have asserted 
the divine existence to be an intuition — an immediate 
perception of the reason, independently of any sug- 
gestion, argument, or evidence. By others again, it 
has been attempted to establish it by the rigid steps of 
mathematical demonstration. ITearly all agree that 
the constitution and the course of nature suggest an 
infinite intelligence ; and it has also been insisted, 
more especially by Kant and those who have followed 
him, that the moral nature of man, — his conscience 
and sense of moral obligation — affords conclusive 
proof of the being and moral government of God. 

That a belief of the divine existence is innate, in the 
proper sense, the soundest philosophy forbids us to 
believe. That the truth that there is a God is strictly 
and purely an intuition, does not by any means ap- 
pear. It is likewise pretty generally conceded that 
the proposition does not fall within the province of 

* De Natura Deorum, B. II. , Cap. 12. 



92 DISCOTJRSES ON TJll^ 

matliematical reasoning, and that tlie so-called demon- 
strations of it, have in fact been failures. We believe 
the true statement of the matter to be this : — That the 
human mind is constitiotionally fitted to know God, — 
BO that the notion of him, and a persuasion of his ex- 
istence, necessarily arise within the soul whenever the 
faculties are in any good degree developed ; and that 
in its own moral consciousness, and in a great variety 
of facts and phenomena external to itself, it finds, on 
reflection, proofs that he does exist; — proofs of a 
moral nature, yet sufficient to establish the fact as an 
absolute certainty, in the view of the understanding. 
Such being the facts in relation to this great ques- 
tion, it is plain that the force of the evidence of the 
divine existence does not depend on any single proof 
or mode of argument considered by itself, but, as in 
other cases of moral or probable reasoning, on the en- 
tire impression which all proofs that can be gathered 
from all sources, are adapted to produce when taken 
in combination. Our proper method is, to avail our- 
selves of every fact and every circumstance which has 
the least sioiiificance : to seize on the slisfhtest intima- 
tions of a Deity, as well as on the most palpable and 
convincing attestations of his being ; and in this way 
to accumulate our evidence till it rises before us like 
one vast mountain, commanding in its aspect, and for- 
ever immovable on its firm foundations. 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOUS O UNIONS. 93 

III accordance witli tins view, it is proposed in this 
discourse to call your attention to certain generally 
admitted facts, wliicli cannot but have great weight, 
if seriously and candidly considered, as they bear, es- 
pecially when taken together, on the question of the 
divine existence. 

First of all, it is a well known fact, that the idea of 
God and of spiritual existence, is, and has always 
been, nearly or quite universal among mankind. 

Among all nations which have attained to any good 
degree of civilization, the idea of God, or of gods, one 
of whom was above the rest, has been perfectly famil- 
iar. The most barbarous and degraded even, who in 
some instances have seemed on a slight acquaintance 
with them, to have no such conception, have been 
found on further examination to entertain it. Along 
with the idea of God, has been found also that of a 
spiritual world, and of spiritual existence and agency, 
in a variety of forms. Hence the mythologies, some 
of them highly poetical and beautiful, which grew up 
under the polished culture of the Greeks and Romans, 
and the more grotesque and fanciful systems of orien- 
tal nations. It is doubtless true that among the less 
enlightened portions of mankind, the notion of God 
has been extremely gross and every way defective. 
Forasmuch as they have not liked to retain God in 



94 DISCOUESES ON THE 

their knowledge, tliej have become vain in their im- 
aginations and their foolish hearts have been dark- 
ened. But of this we have no occasion now to speak. 
It is the fact that this idea, in any degree of develop- 
ment whatever, should so universally prevail, that 
claims our present notice, and requires an explanation. 
How shall it be accounted for, in a way to satisfy the 
thoughtful mind ? "Whence comes it, that the whole 
human race appear to be under a kind of constitu- 
tional necessity of forming and entertaining an idea 
to which there exists no object — no reality — to cor- 
respond ? If there is a God, the infinite and intelli- 
gent Creator of all things, it is but natural, in the 
view of enlightened reason, that man should be so 
made, and his circumstances so arranged, that some 
notion of the Great Author and Preserver of his being 
should necessarily arise within his soul. But say tha 
there is no God, and it appears wholly unaccountable 
— a phenomenon without a cause — that such a con- 
ception, more or less imperfect as the case may be, 
should be found to spring up, as if by a moral instinct, 
in every human bosom. 

It is equally a matter of common observation, that 
the more thoughtful, and especially the more virtuous 
men are, the more, as the general rule, they are dis- 
posed to cherish the idea of a supreme Being. 



FOEMATION OF EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 95 



It will be admitted that tlie more the mind is ad- 
dicted to serious reflection, and inquiry after truth ; 
and the more pure and virtuous it is in its tastes and 
dispositions ; the nearer it approaches to its true nor- 
mal state : — i. e., to the state of right and healthful 
action to which it is constitutionally adapted. Or to 
put the same thing differently, everybody will allow, 
that just in proportion as men are intelligent and 
good, they are likely to be free from perverting influ- 
ences, and clearly to perceive truth as it actually is. 
It would not seem a strange thing that mind in an 
abnormal condition, disordered through ignorance and 
vice, should be led to entertain erroneous and un- 
founded notions ; but if that which appears to be the 
truth to mind in its highest and best condition, and 
which is found, universally, to become the more cer- 
tain to it, the more and the better it investigates, may 
after all be only an, illusion ; then there can be no 
such thing as positive truth, nothing of real unques- 
tionable knowledge, within the reach of man. 

When, therefore, we observe that to serious think- 
ers and the lovers of true virtue in all ages and among 
all nations, the idea of God has been not only a famil- 
iar, but a favorite idea ; that, generally, the convic- 
tion of the existence of an infinitely perfect Being has 
been clear and strong in proportion as the intelligence 



96 DISCOURSES ON THE 

lias been superior and tlie virtue unequivocal ; we are 
plainly in tliis dilemma ; — tliat we must deny the cer- 
tainty of liuman knowledge altogether, or else we 
must believe that there is substantial evidence that 
such a being does actually exist. Either we are so 
constituted that in the best use of our highest facul- 
ties, we are naturally led to believe and love a false- 
hood, or else there is, in the existence of a supreme 
being, a personal God, an objective reality, corres- 
ponding to the idea which the enlightened mind is 
disposed to entertain ; and to the belief in which it 
feels itself the more constrained to rest, the more ele- 
vated and pure are its affections, and the more liberal 
and profound its knowledge. 

It is also a fact not to be disputed, that a belief in 
the existence of a God has always been found exceed- 
ingly difficult to be eradicated. • 

^Notwithstanding that, as already noticed, the notion 
of a Supreme Being appears to arise naturally in the 
minds of all men, who have any intellectual culture, 
there have still been professed atheists, in every age. 
But in relation to these there are two things to be 
particularly observed. The first is, that it has always 
been apparent that they established themselves in the 
disbelief of the divine existence, only after great and 
usually long continued, striving, against an inward 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 97 

conviction of the probability, at least, of tlie being of 
a God. They have shown how strong was the ten- 
dency of their minds towards theism, by their eager- 
ness to find out arguments against it ; and by their 
readiness to lay hold of any that could be made to 
seem available, even though they w^ere really sophis- 
tical and weak.. They have, in general, very obvi- 
ously found it difficult to keep their minds at rest in 
the state of disbelief, to such a degree as to relieve 
them 'from the constant necessity of laboring to fortify 
themselves in their position. 

The other thing deserving notice in respect to those 
professing atheism, is that when they had seemed to 
be confirmed in tlie rejection of the doctrine of a God, 
it has often happened that the influence of some com- 
paratively trifling circumstance or argument, has been 
sufficient to neutralise entirely their unbelief almost 
in a single moment; and the conviction that there 
must be, or certainly that there may be a Deity after 
all, has come back upon their minds with overwhelm- 
ing power. When they had j)ronounced the idea of 
God a mere chimera, and had imagined themselves 
forever emancipated from the superstition of admit- 
ting it, they have found that there still seemed to be 
a something, in the deep recesses of the soul, that 
would sometimes whisper the unwelcome tliouglit 
with a startling distinctness, and make it seem, at 



98 DISCOURSES ON THE 

least for tlie time, an unquestionable reality. I once 
found, in a meeting for religious inquiry, an intelli- 
gent young man whom I liacl never seen before. He 
seemed to feel intensely. Seating myself by bis side. 
I asked in what state of mind be was. " O, sir — said 
be — I do not know, myself. I w^as an atbeist a little 
wbile ago, or tbougbt I was ; but now it lias all gone 
from me. I feel — I know — now, tbat tbere is a God !" 
Many sucb instances occur ; sometimes under the in- 
fluence of revivals of religion ; sometimes in tbe sea- 
son of affliction, in tbe moment of danger, or in tbe 
bour of deatb. Tbey are impressive illustrations of 
tbe difficulty witb wbicb a belief in tbe divine exist- 
ence can be totally eradicated, wben once developed 
in tbe mind. Tbey make it clear tbat tbe most con- 
firmed atbeist can never be quite sure tbat be will 
not find bis unbelief forsaking bim, just wben be will 
want it most ; and tbe unwelcome conviction wbicb 
be bad tbougbt forever banisbed, returning on bim 
witb overwbelming force. 

How tlien sball we account for tbis ? Some good 
reason certainly tbere must be, for tbis great difficulty, 
universally experienced, in attempting to rid tbe mind 
in wliicb tbe idea of God bas been developed, of a 
conviction of bis existence. Tbe pbenomenon cannot, 
be accidental ; it exbibits too mucb of -tbe constancy 
of establisbed law. To wbat can we refer it, but to a 



I 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 99 

constitutional adaptation of the mind to receive tlio 
triitli that there is a God, — taken in connection with 
the objective certainty of the truth itself. This plainly 
is the only satisfactory solution. There is no other 
which is even plausible. 

We may further add, in the fourth place, that the 
atheistical hypothesis, or in other words the supposi- 
tion that no God exists, when fully and distinctly 
placed before the mind, is abhorrent to the moral feel- 
ings of the soul. 

It is obvious that men may speak, and often do 
speak, of the non-existence of a Deity, without any 
distinct notion of w^hat this really involves ; and it is 
because they speak inconsiderately and ignorantly, 
that they are not conscious of any strong repugnance 
to the admission of the thought. Or if, in the case of 
those who have utterly abandoned themselves to evil, 
and who in the depth of their depravity appear to 
wish there were no God, the hypothesis of atheism 
when deliberately considered does not awaken feel- 
ings of abhorrence ; it is only because the non-exist- 
ence of God is regarded as a less dreadful evil, than 
the suffering of eternal punishment. If there were 
no God, it would by no means follow, either that the 
wicked would cease to be at death, or that if they 
should continue to exist they would be happy. But 



100 DISOOUESES ON THE 

while tliey flatter themselves that such would be the 
consequence, this hope of impunity may in a measure 
reconcile them to the idea of a universe without a 
Deity. 

With some such partial, and perhaps only apparent 
exceptions, it is certainly true, that the moral senti- 
ments of the human soul do so earnestly demand a 
God, that the serious supposition that none exists, is 
one from which the heart shrinks, as dark and horri- 
ble in the last degree. 

A German writer, the celebrated Jean Paul Eich- 
ter, illustrates this revulsion of the moral instincts of 
the soul from atheism, in a passage of such surpassing 
impressiveness and power, that I am tempted to quote 
it, notwithstanding the strangeness of the style in 
which it is conceived and executed. It takes the form 
of a dream, and has a wildness which only a German 
imagination could have imparted to the treatment of 
such a subject; but the entire impression which it 
makes is truthful and profound. It is as follows : — 

" I was reclining one summer evening on the sum- 
mit of a hill, and falling asleep there, I dreamed that 
I awoke in the middle of the night in a churchyard. 
The clock struck eleven. The tombs were all half 
open, and the iron gates of the church moved by an 
invisible hand, opened and shut again with a great 
noise. I saw shadows flitting along the walls, which 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 101 



were not cast by any bodily substance. Other livid 
spectres rose in the air, and children alone still re- 
posed in their coffins. There was a greyish, heavy 
stifling cloud in the sky, which was sti-ained and com- 
pressed into long folds by a gigantic phantom. Above 
me I heard the distant fall of avalanches, and under 
my feet the first commotion of a mighty earthquake. 
Tlie church shook, and the air was agitated by pierc- 
ing and discordant sounds. 

" The pale lightning cast a mournful light. I felt 
myself impelled by terror to seek shelter i» the tem- 
ple. Two splendid basilisks were placed before its 
formidable gates. 

" I advanced amid the crowd of unknown shades on 
whom the seal of ancient ages was imprinted. Tliey 
all pressed around the despoiled altar; and their 
breasts only breathed and were agitated with violence. 
One corpse alone which had been lately buried in the 
church reposed on its winding sheet ; there w^as yet 
no motion in its breast, and a pleasing dream gave a 
smile to its countenance ; but at the approach of a 
living being it awoke, ceased to smile, and opened its 
heavy eyelids with a painful effort. Tlie socket of 
the eye was empty, and where the heart had been 
there was only a deep wound. It raised its hands 
and joined them to pray; but tlie arms lengthened, 



102 DISCOURSES ON THE 

were detached from tlie body, and the clasped liands 
fell to tlie earth. 

" In the vaulted ceiling of the church was placed 
the dial of eternity. 'No figures or index were there, 
but a black hand went slowly round, and the dead en- 
deavored to read on it the lapse of time. 

" From the high places there then descended on the 
altar a figure beaming with light, noble, elevated, but 
who bore the impression of never-ending sorrow. The 
dead cried out : — O Christ ! — is there then no God ? 
He replied : — There is none. All the spectres then 
began to tremble violently, and Christ continued 
thus : I have traversed worlds, I have raised myself 
above their suns, and there, also, there is no God ! I 
have descended to the lowest limits of the universe ; 
I looked into the abyss and I cried : O Father, where 
art thou ? Yet I heard nothing but the rain that fell 
drop by drop into the abyss, and the everlasting and 
ungovernable tempest alone answered me. Then rais- 
ing my regards to the vault of heaven, 1 saw only an 
empty orbit, dark and bottomless. Eternity reposed 
on chaos, and in gnawing it, slowly also devoured 
itself. Redouble then your piercing and bitter com- 
plaints. May shrill cries disperse your sj)irits, for all 
hope is over. 

" The spectres of despair vanished, like the white 
vapor ^condensed by the frost. The church was soon 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 103 

deserted. But all at once — terrific sight — tlie dead 
children who were now awakened in their turn in the 
churchyard, ran and prostrated themselves before the 
majestic figure which was on the altar, saying to him : 
Jesus, have we no Father ? And he replied with a 
torrent of tears : We are all orphans ! JSTeither I nor 
you have any Father ! — At these words, the temple 
and the children were swallowed up, and all the edi- 
fice of the world, sunk before me into the immensity 
of space." 

Appalling as this picture is, of the anguish and de- 
spair which would overwhelm the spirits of men were 
it authoritatively announced to them that the idea of 
God was a chimera, — that the universe was without a 
head, and all beings without a Father ; it is yet a pic- 
ture by no means overdrawn. Let any one who is 
disposed to doubt on this point — make a deliberate 
and fair appeal to his own consciousness, and he will 
find how abhorrent to his whole moral nature is the 
conception of a universe without a Deity — the blind, 
dark, dismal reign of forces eternally conflicting, 
T\dthout unity and without intelligence, instead of the 
dominion of wisdom and of love embodied in a per- 
sonal and infinitely perfect God. Why in all nature 
'does the seed sprout upward, plant it as you will ? 
Because, by an inward law, it is determined to seek 
the genial influence of the sun. Even so the hu- 



104: DISCOURSES ON THE 

man soul lias deep within itself a something — call it a 
yearning, or an instinct, or whatever else you choose 
— a sense of want profound and uneradicable — which 
until it be utterly destroyed by sin so causes it to feel 
the need of God, that even while it does not truly love 
him, it cannot endure the thought of his non-existence. 
What then shall be said by way of accounting for 
so remarkable a fact ? Is there more than. one solu- 
tion which will at all commend itself to any serious, 
thinking mind ? Does it not seem a gross absurdity 
to entertain the thought, that the rational soul of man 
is constitutionally disposed to search after, and to de- 
mand as an absolute necessity in order to its happi- 
ness, a living, personal Deity, if no such being really 
exists? Can it be possibly conceived that atheism 
should be so abhorrent to the best feelings of the heart 
in man, so intolerable to think of, if the atheistical 
hypothesis be not a falsehood and an absurdity ? 

"We refer in the fifth place to yet another fact which 
is of great significance. It is clearly proved by the 
experience of all ages, that a belief in the existence 
of one supreme and perfect God, is in a high degree 
elevating and happy in the influence which it exerts 
on the mind and heart of man ; while the views of 
atheism have tended only to demoralization and de- 
basement. 



FORMATION OF KELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 105 

It doubtless has sometimes been true that individu- 
als have been found who have professed atheism, and 
yet have not materially departed outwardly from the 
observances of virtue. But these have been chiefly 
such as have been born and educated where the insti- 
tutions, and the whole spirit of society, were deter- 
mined by a very general belief in the divine exist- 
ence ; and to this it has been owing, that the appro- 
priate effects of then* unbelief have not appeared. So 
obvious have been the pernicious tendencies of athe- 
ism, even where the prevalent ideas of God were ex- 
ceedingly erroneous, that philosophers and statesmen 
who studied to promote the well being of society, 
have regarded the popular belief of polytheism, bring- 
ing along with it all the evils of idolatry, as safer far, 
and greatly less corrupting, than the atheistical denial 
of any power superior to man and nature. They 
dared not disturb the popular faith in divine existence 
and agency, corrupted and imperfect as it was, and 
even seemed to countenance it altliough they had 
themselves attained to better views, because they saw 
that under the reign of universal atheism, all the vir- 
tues that adorn humanity, and even society itself, 
would perish. 

On the other hand, the fact lies on the very face of 
human history, that a settled belief in the being of a 

5^ 



106 DISCOURSES ON THE 

God, and of the truths which are obviously deducible 
from this, is not only favorable in its influence on hu- 
man character and happiness, but favorable in a very 
high degree. The existence of a Deity admitted, the 
doctrines of a Providence, of human responsibility, 
and of ultimate retribution, logically follow ; and are 
of course admitted likewise ; and all these truths taken 
together must, from the nature of the case, tend pow- 
erfully to develope the feeling of moral obligation in 
the soul, and to put restraint on all its propensities to 
evil. Such have been everywhere their manifest 
effects. If it is true, — and it must certainly be ad- 
mitted to be true — that in communities and states in 
which there has been a prevalent acknowledgment of 
the divine existence, there have been but too many 
exhibitions of popular depravity, it will also be found 
on inquiry to be true that when corruption of manners 
has most obtained, faith in a Deity has been least 
real ; and on the contrary, it will appear that when 
faith in God has been most intelligent, most vital and 
prevailing, — the evil impulses of men have been most 
restrained, and the flowers and the fruits of virtue 
have most richly bloomed and ripened throughout all 
the walks of life. Eefer for example, if you please, to 
Jewish history. There were periods in which their 
belief in the one true God was general, deep and ear- 
nest. Those were the bright and glorious periods of 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 107 

their national existence. Tliere were days in wliicli 
they lost the freshness and the vigor of their faith in 
the great Jehovah, and even lapsed into actual idola- 
try ; and those were the days in which both public 
and private virtue disappeared, and there was seen 
every where the sad and abhorrent picture of individ- 
ual baseness, and of social rottenness and misery ; 
and even at the worst, their moral condition was far 
better than that of the nktions immediately around 
them, among whom there was no faith in the one true 
God at all. It is impossible to read the glowing pas- 
sages of Da\T.d and Isaiah, in which they delineate 
with such surpassing power and beauty the character 
and attributes of the Most High, without believing, 
that the grand idea of divine perfection which was 
ever present to their minds, — the noble conception of 
a personal self-existent God, infinite in power and 
wisdom, in holiness and majesty, — did operate most 
powerfully to elevate, expand and purify their souls. 
— So far as the mass of the nation were able to 
receive and entertain such views, and were believ- 
ingly familiar with them, the same effects must have 
been wrought on them. 

Here then, as before, we ask — what explanation 
shall be given? "With the indisputable fact before 
us, that a belief in a living personal God, has proved 
itself in every age and nation most salutary in its 



108 DISCOUESES ON THE 

influence on human character ; that its tendency has 
clearly been to develop intellectual and moral life 
and energy, and to invest humanity with the charms 
of moral loveliness, are we to thmk — can we imagine 
— that this belief is without the least foundation — a 
fond but idle fancy — an empty, vain delusion ? Who 
has credulity enough for this ? "Who can persuade 
himself that this grand moral force which has been 
seen exerting itself on the minds and hearts of men 
from the creation until now, is after all a mere non- 
entity — a fiction of the mind itself ? This striking 
fact, that the influence of a belief in the divine exist- 
ence has always been so eminently happy and enno- 
bling, must make the supposition that this belief is 
false, seem utterly absurd to the candid, thoughtful 
mind. 

You will observe, that in calling your atten- 
tion to the several important facts to which we 
have referred, it has not been asserted that any one 
of them, or even all of them together, do constitute 
an absolute and perfect demonstration of a God. On 
the contrary we have said, that such a thing is not to 
be expected. But what we say is this. The human 
mind, whenever and wherever developed into intelli- 
gent consciousness, appears naturally and necessarily 
to have the notion of a God. The more reflective 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 109 

and especially the more virtuous men have been in 
every age, the more, as the general rule they have 
loved and cherished this idea. Those who, for any 
reason, have sought to rid themselves of all belief in 
God, have found the task extremely difficult — almost 
impossible. Tlie conception of a universe without a 
God, is, when deliberately considered, naturally 
abhorrent to the soul. And finally, the belief in a 
self-conscious, intelligent, personal Deity, has always 
been seen to exert the best influence on human char- 
acter and happiness. Each one of these facts, consid- 
ered by itself, is wholly unaccountable except on the 
supposition that God actually exists. Each one of them 
impresses the serious, honest mind with a conviction 
of his being; and then, when we take them all 
together. — with no conflicting proof to neutralise their 
force — they carry that conviction to a moral certainty, 
which sound philosophy, and the laws of reasoning 
on such subjects, decide to be not at all less satisfac- 
tory and conclusive, than that of the most rigid dem- 
onstration. Such is the method, and such the result 
of the present argument. It is only one of several 
modes in which we may consider this great subject. 
"We may take other standpoints, and have recourse to 
other kinds of proof; and so, as we observed in the 
beginning, we may confirm our moral instincts by 



110 DISCOURSES ON THE 

substantial arguments adduced in indefinite accumu- 
lation. 

Let us also understand, that tlie study of this 
subject is not unprofitable speculation. Far from 
it. Scepticism so often repulsed in its grosser 
attacks on divine religion, has in this, our time, assumed 
a more refined and subtle form. The philosophical 
pantheism of the schools of Germany and of the most 
recent sceptical writers of England and America, is a 
practical if not a real atheism. If God be not a liv- 
ing, personal, self-conscious being, existing apart from 
the creation, but only an unconscious necessary cause 
or force evolving itself in the universe of things and 
alwajs immanent in it, the name may be retained, but 
the thing is gone forever. Such a necessary cause, or 
force, or ground of being, — call it what you will — is 
no more God in any proper sense, than was the eter- 
nal fate of the Greek mythology. The advocates of 
the modern pantheistic views do as completely empty 
the universe of God, according to any true notion of 
his being, as it is possible to do ; and leave an awful 
vacancy as horrible to the conception of a healthful, 
sober mind, as it was represented in the passage 
quoted from Jean Paul a little while ago. 

Yet these are the views which in so many capti- 
vating forms, in books and lectures, in poetry and 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. Ill 

prose are, now addressed to the better class of minds 
among the young people of onr land. Their vague- 
ness takes the imagination. Their pretension excites 
the hope of augmented light. But, believe it, they 
do but mock with empty names, and with bewilder- 
ing shadows ; and bring instead of increased illumin- 
ation, the murky gloom of unalleviated darkness : 

Black as deep midnight, terrible as hell ! 

From all such exhibitions, turn to the facts 
affirmed by human consciousness and human his- 
tory to which we have referred, and let them make 
their mighty plea for God — the real God — within 
your souls. It is clear with such facts before you, 
that your souls are made to conceive of God ; that 
they deeply yearn for God ; that they cleave to a be- 
lief in .God ; that they shrink from the orphanage to 
wliich his nonexistence would consign them ; and 
finally, that they feel themselves drawn upward in the 
scale of being by the glorious attraction of his infinite 
perfection. You must then recognise the living God. 
You cannot do without him. The planets in the 
heavens, which are held ever in their places by the 
attraction of the central orb, and have all their life 
and gladness in his beams, shall as soon be able to do 
without the sun, as you shall be able to do without 
the centre of all minds, the resplendent light of all 



112 DISC0UK8ES. ETC. 

the universe, tlie fountain of those influences and 
those attractions, which produce and perpetuate 
throughout the whole, order, harmony and blessed- 
ness. There is a God. It is only the fool, that denies 
it in his heart. 



ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN FOR THE 
DIVINE EXISTENCE. 



EoM. i. 20. For the invisible things ofHim^from the 
creation of the world are clearly seen^ being under- 
stood by the things that are made^ even his eternal 
power and Godhead. 

In a former discourse, we have endeavored to pre- 
sent tlie evidence of the divine existence which is 
furnished by the moral constitution, instincts and his 
tory of man, as exhibited in certain familiar and gen- 
erally admitted facts. It was then observed, that that 
was only one of many lines of argument which might 
properly be pursued, for the purpose of advancing 
the instinctive belief in the being of a God which men 
seem naturally to entertain, to a full conviction of the 
understanding — a rational faith, logically established 
by conclusive proofs. 

The text invites us to take another position and to 
(113) 



114: DISCOTJRSES ON THE 

pursue another course of thought, on this deeply in- 
teresting subject. In order to render its exact mean- 
ing a little more easy to be apprehended, we may 
paraphrase this remarkable passage in the following 
manner : For his invisible attributes, even his eternal 
power and divinity, are clearly seen since the creation 
of the world, being rendered intelligible by the things 
that are made. I propose, in this discourse, to 
direct your thoughts to the truth which it clearly 
states, — that the constitution and the (phenomena 
of the system of nature^ afford decisive evidence of the 
existence of a God. 

The argument constructed on this basis, is what is 
commonly called the argument from design. Kant 
and his followers among the Germans, and Coleridge 
and those who adoj)t his views among English and 
American writers on the subject, have denied the 
validity of this argument ; or rather they have denied 
that it amounts to a strict and absolute demonstration 
— a thing which ought never to have been claimed in 
its behalf. It is an argument of the moral or proba- 
ble kind ; and as such, when correctly stated, it is not 
only valid and worthy of attention, but is in fact one 
of the most striking and irresistible that can be pre- 
sented to the mind. The mind being, as we have 
seen, instinctively disposed to find a God, the consti- 
tution and aspects of nature attentively and candidly 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 115 

considered, afford it proofs of his existence, wliich 
thoTiglmot matliematically demonstrative in tlieir na- 
ture, are yet, if allowed their fair impression, not at 
all inferior, in their power to produce conviction, to 
the severest demonstration. 

The argument, in short, is this. The system of na- 
ture exhibits innumerable instances of the adaptation 
of means to ends and of particular and general de- 
sign. We are certain that this system had a begin- 
ning. To originate it, there must have been a con- 
triver and architect adequate to the production of 
such a universe ; and although as the universe is 
not infinite, an infinite designer is not mathematically 
proved, yet as the mind is constituted, it cannot con- 
ceive of a being capable of producing such a universe, 
without feeling it absurd to set any limits to his power 
and wisdom and other manifested attributes ; without, 
in a w^ord, ascribing to Him the attributes which con- 
stitute a personal God of infinite perfection. We are 
not to consider what would be the force of this evi- 
dence apart from the peculiar laws of our moral na 
ture ; but what is its legitimate and actual force, as 
addressed to such a nature. Considered in its rela- 
tion to our minds, particularly to our moral instincts, 
the proof of a God derived from the appearances of 
nature is certainly clear and satisfactory. That this 
may appear, we will more fully illustrate and atnplify 



116 DISCOUKSES ON THE 

the argument as just stated in a brief and simple 
way. 

Suppose tlien, tliat in travelling throngli a country 
in wliicli you are a stranger, you arrive at a splendid 
palace. You observe, as you approach it, that the 
noble park in which it is embosomed, is carefully 
enclosed, that it is adorned with a variety of trees, 
many of them obviously transplanted from foreign 
climes, and that herds of deer are grazing on its slopes. 
Its gardens, you notice, are planned in exact accord- 
ance with the rules of correct perspective, and are 
supplied with every plant and shrub recommended 
either by utility or beauty, and with the choicest 
fruits of all the several seasons. Tlie edifice itself, 
strikes you at once as a model of architectural syme- 
try and proportion, and as in all respects exceedingly 
well-planned. On its top is an- observator}^, fur- 
nished with a telescope ingeniously arranged, and com- 
mandino^ the most delis^htful views in all directions. 
As you ascend the marble steps, which are hewn and 
laid with mathematical exactness, and the door bal- 
anced nicely on its hinges opens at your touch, you 
perceive that throughout the whole establishment 
there is perfect order, combined with admirable taste 
and art. The hall is large and airy, and enriched 
with the master-pieces of the painter and the sculptor ; 



FOKMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 117 

the drawiug-rooms are lofty and well-proportioned, 
while the brilliant chandelier dependent from the 
ceiling and tlie massive lamps upon tlie mantel, fur- 
nish complete facilities for the most agreeable illii- 
niination. You find also in their proper places the 
useful chair, the comfortable sofa, and the luxurious 
couch with its downy pillow. In short, after examin- 
ing every part attentively, you can discover nothing 
wantinor which could contribute to the comfort or the 
pleasure of the occupant. 

After haying satisfied your curiosity and admired 
sufiiciently the wisdom wbich contrived and the skill 
which executed so fine a plan, you resume j^our jour- 
ney anxious to be informed who has fitted up for him- 
self this magnificent abode. Soon you meet a resident 
of the neighborhood and ask him to inform you. — 
With an air of surprise at your inquiry, he replies : 
" That palace was never built, as you suppose. It has 
alioays stood there precisely as it is." You feel the 
entire absurdity of such an answer and conclude that 
your informant is a fool, or else that he believes that 
you are one. You meet a second and repeat your 
question. He gravely tells you that your impressions 
respecting it are wholly wrong ; that there is really 
no contrivance or design about it ; that matter must 
exist under some form or other ; and that amono: the 



118 DISCOTJESES ON THE 

infinity of possible modifications, it has happened to 
take the order and arrangement you have noticed. 
This answer you find even more repugnant to your 
reason than the former ; and intent on coming at the 
truth, you ask a third. His statement is that a man 
of princely means and tastes, at a certain time selec- 
ted the site of the palace, laid out and beautified tlie 
grounds, erected the noble edifice, procured the costly 
furniture and spared no pains to make it a rich and 
convenient habitation; and that at particular seasons 
of the year, he is wont to occupy it and to enjoy the 
means of happiness which it aifords. This answer ac- 
cords with all that you have seen, and is a satisfactory 
solution of the case. 

Like such a palace, is the natural world 
around you. Throughout its diversified and al- 
most innumerable arrangements you see a design 
W'hich evinces surprising wisdom and an execution in- 
dicative of boundless power. Tlie globe itself is one 
of the members of a nicely adjusted system. For 
thousands of years, it has moved through a path more 
tlian five hundred millions of miles in circuit, never 
wandering from its course. During the same period, 
it has steadily revolved upon its axis, maintaining 
with undeviating regularity the alternations of day 
and night. Everywdiere, on the surface of the earth, 
you find the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 119 

characterized bj adaptations the most wonderful and 
perfect, and bj a rigid conformity to law. There is a 
place and a use for everything and everything is fitted 
to its place and use. Modify at any point the exist- 
ing order of things, and you are certain to introduce 
disorder and deformity. Excliange, for example, the 
teeth and claws of the lion, for the grinders and clo- 
ven feet of the ox, and the one would inevitably fam- 
ish amid the mountains of prey, and the other though 
surrounded by the ample luxuriance of the pasture. 
Give to the eagle fins and transfer his pinions to the 
shark and each would perish hopelessly, unfitted for 
his proper element. For the grateful verdure of the 
grass and trees, let there be substituted the bright 
yellow of the gold-cup or the pure white of the lilly, 
or the dazzling scarlet of the geranium, and you might 
almost as well put out the sun, or at once doom all 
the world to blindness. Let the granite strata be 
transformed to diamond and you could neither re- 
move them from their places nor convert them to 
your use, w^ith any tolerable convenience. Let your 
springs of water lose their pure and grateful tasteless- 
ness and acquire instead a sweet or a spicy flavor, 
and your drink would shortly cloy your appetite and 
beget a loathing. In a word suppose any material 
change you please in the constitution of the natural 
world and you will find that mischievous results would 



VZO DISCOURSES ON THE 

inevitably follow its occurrence. It is a perfect and 
harmonious whole, uniting, like the palace in the case 
supposed, both usefulness and beauty, each in its due 
proportion. 

But the fact that there are indications in the system 
of nature of a general plan, an adjustment of the sev- 
eral parts to one another, is not all that it concerns us 
to observe. Each natural object in itself and aside 
from its relations to the whole, exhibits proof of wise 
contrivance and design. The vegetable and animai 
kingdoms perhaps furnish the most striking instances 
of this. The botanist who examines the germinating 
and fructifying organs of plants, and the anatomist 
who explores the mysteries of the animal economy, 
find at every step of their investigations, adaptations 
which surprise by their ingenuity and astonish by 
their perfection. Many of these provisions, indeed, 
are obvious only to the scientific eye ; yet very many 
also may be noticed by the most uninformed obser- 
ver. Who, for instance, can have failed to mark how 
the seed of the thistle is scattered over the face of the 
earth by means of its balloon of down ? Who has not 
noticed how the reed, the corn-stalk and the tall spire 
of grass, could not have stood erect but for the singu- 
lar device of joints formed at certain intervals, which 
add greatly to their strength ? To whom has it not 
occurred that to invert the position of the ear, would 



FOKMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 121 

be almost to destroy its value ? Who has not often 
admired the position and the structure of that most 
perfect of all telescopes the eye ? Defended by the 
nasal, cheek and frontal bones, and veiled by its elas- 
tic curtain, delicate as it is, it is probably more rare- 
ly injured than any other organ; while with its com- 
plicated lenses, its dilating and contracting pupil and 
its self-regulating power, it is a specimen of unrivalled 
mechanism. We might go on to mention the heart, 
with its cells and valves and spontaneous motion ; 
the lungs, with their delicate and elastic structure ; 
and the limbs with their muscles, tendons, ligaments 
and joints. But it is not my design to pursue this 
part of the subject into minute detail. 

ISTow to the question that forces itself upon every 
thoughtful mind — whence this obvious general de- 
sign and these wonderful special adaptations, one of 
three answers must be given, viz : — Either things have 
always existed as they are ; or they exist in their 
present state by accident, or they are the work of an 
intelligent Author. 

The first of these answers — that the world has al- 
ways existed as it is — corresponds, you perceive, with 
the reply of the person whom we supposed to say that 
the palace so complete and well-arranged, was never 
built, but had always presented the appearance de- 

6 



122 DISCOUESES ON THE 

scribed ; and the falsehood of the one, is not less pal- 
pable than that of the other. There is, on the first 
mention of the thing, the same sort of difliculty in con- 
ceiving of such a world without a planner, as such an 
edifice without an architect ; and then further, what- 
ever may or may not be true about the eternity of 
matter, we positively know, for science, particularly 
the science of Geology, affords most ample proof of 
the fact, that the present sy stern of things upon our 
earth is not eternal. It has not always existed as it 
is, but has had a comparatively recent origin. The 
several stages or gradations by which it has reached 
its present state, are written for our study on the suc- 
cessive strata of the rocks. With the testimony of 
the sciences, all the existing records of human history 
agree. While the remains of perished genera and 
species, both of animals and plants, declare that neith- 
er of these departments of nature has been always as 
it is, there are abundant facts to prove that the human 
race have not always existed on the earth. 

I omit on this point, some abstract modes of reason- 
ing, which have commonly been employed, as ren- 
dered unnecessary by the facts to w^hich we have just 
referred. 

The second answer, which corresponds with the re- 
ply, supposed in our illustration, that the palace was 
produced fortuitously as one possible form of matter. 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 123 

assumes that matter has inherent in it some blind 
force, some tendency to organized arrangement, by 
virtue of which, in the course of ages, it has assumed 
the forms in which we see it. On this we may remark 
that the assumption is wholly conjectural and unsup- 
ported. There is not the slightest proof of such a ten- 
dency to organise ; but on the contrary natural phi- 
losophy lays it down as a fundamental doctrine that 
matter is entirely passive ; that is, that if put at rest 
it remains at rest, and if put in motion, it remains in 
motion. But even if such a tendency were granted, 
it would transcend belief entirely that a mere blind 
property of matter should produce contrivance so in- 
genious and workmanship so exquisite, that the most 
perfect human sagacity and skill cannot rival it by an 
immeasurable distance. Then farther, it is not mater- 
ial forms alone which are to be accounted for ; but 
also the vital principle in all organic life, and the in- 
telligence exhibited by the animal creation, and most 
of all by man. To suppose these things to result from 
the mere juxtaposition of material particles, is to ex- 
hibit the credulity of believing without the slightest 
evidence, and to rest our opinions upon fancy. 

We are shut up therefore, to the third alternative ; to 
the conclusion that, like the palace, our world must 
have been contrived and fitted up by a wise designer. 



124 



DISCOURSES ON THE 



After surveying its broad plan, and observing how it 
bears, even in its minutest parts, the most indubitable 
marks ol intelligent adaptation, the mind can find no 
resting place but in the admission of a personal Cre- 
ator, endowed with the power, the wisdom and otlier 
attributes, whatever they may be, which render him 
adequate to the work of constructing and sustaining 
such a system ; and then when we enlarge our view 
and take in the vast extent of the creation, of which 
the amazing discoveries of astronomical science give 
us only a faint idea, we perceive that a being ade- 
quate to the work of creating, upholding and govern- 
ing such a universe, must be so great, so transcendent 
in his attributes, that we can form no higher concep- 
tion of infinity, or of absolute perfection, than is real- 
ized in him. To minds constituted like ours, it mat- 
ters not that the proof of an infinite, self-conscious, 
living God, is not demonstrative in its nature ; it is 
enough that to a soul instinctively demanding such a 
God, it carries the presumption that there is such a 
being up to the highest point of moral certainty, and 
thus authorizes and sustains the most complete con- 
viction. 

The argument for the divine existence from the 
adaptation and design which are apparent, must, how- 
ever, in order to be complete, be carried forward from 
^lie aspects of the natural world as observed by the 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 125 

intelligent mind, to the constitution and the phenom- 
ena which the mind itself exhibits. In the general 
adaptation of the soul of man to its position and rela- 
tions, in the fitness of each particular faculty to its end 
and the adjustment and harmony of the whole, there 
meet us the same indications of wisdom directed to 
purposes and ends, which are so striking in material 
natui-e. The relation between the eye and the light, 
the lungs and the air, the ear and the atmospheric 
vibrations, is not more notable and significant than 
that of the intellect to the objects of knowledge, of 
the natural sensibilities to the causes of pleasure and 
pain, of the conscience to the impression of right and 
wrong, and of the desires and the will to the forms of 
good presented. "We cannot here enter on any illus- 
tration of this part of the argument. The mode of 
reasoning is the same whether we attend to matter or 
to mind. The inner woiid supplies us proofs of a de- 
signing God profoundly interesting, and if possible, 
even more impressive, when carefully examined, than 
those of the world without. The common mind is 
most easily led to notice the marks of divine wisdom 
in material nature. But the facts which the world 
of mind presents are eqaially conclusive when once 
they are examined, as has of late been shown by sev- 
eral able writers. 

To every enlightened and really honest mind. 



126 DISCOURSES ON THE 

tlierefore, what the Apostle asserts so distinctly in the 
text is manifestly true. The invisible attributes of 
God, even his eternal power and Godhead, are clearly 
seen since the creation of the world. Such a mind 
feels, that to refuse to admit this, is to resist the laws 
of evidence, is to do violence to its own urgent convic- 
tions, and to plunge into the most palpable absurdities. 
It seems impossible, indeed, that any person, with a 
healthful tone of moral feeling, should bring himself 
to an honest, deliberate conclusion that there is no 
God, after having intelligently studied nature or him- 
self. The irreligious man may say this in his heart ; 
but he will still continue to see it written on every 
part of tbe fair fabric of Creation — every house 
is build ed by some man ; but he that built all 
things is God ! Yes — every star that sparkles in 
the firmament ; every planet as it rolls ; the moon as 
she walks in brightness and the sun as he travels in 
his strength ; each with its own emphatic voice de- 
clares — ^There is a God ! Every seed that germinates, 
every flower that blooms, every fruit that ripens, 
every leaf of the forest that trembles in the breeze, — 
tells us — There is a God ! Every eye that sees, every 
ear that hears, every heart that throbs, every bird 
that flies through the midst of heaven, every fish that 
roams through the ocean's caves and every beast upon 
a thousand hills, declares— There is a God! And 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 127 



lastly, every mind that thinks, and wills, and reasons, 
and remembers, and feels the sense of moral obliga- 
tion, most impressively of all, gives testimony to the 
existence and perfections of a divine Creator. 

" Here is firm footing — here is solid rock, 
And all is sea besides." 



Here we may rest unmoved. This truth admitted, 
the universe is harmonized ; much of its darkness is 
dispelled, and a key is furnished for the solution of 
many of its mysteries. If there yet remain anomalies 
which baffle us, if there are some arrangements whose 
design we are thus far unable to discover, if there are 
still deeps which we cannot fathom with our utmost 
reach of intellect, let us remember that our under- 
standing bears a less relation to the Infinite Intelli- 
gence, than a grain of sand bears to the material uni- 
verse ; and in faith and meekness let us wait, till we 
shall be placed in that higher world, where with ex- 
panded intellect and clearer vision, we shall behold 
the glory of the Lord. 

If now, it be true, that the appearances of na- 
ture do plainly teach that there is a Supreme Be- 
ing, then certainly it follows that all mankind are 
bound to recognize him. Paul, in the context, is 
speaking of the heathen ; and he declares that even 



128 DISCOUKSES ON THE 

their ignorance of God is without excuse. It is an ig- 
norance which exists in- spite of evidence, and is fos- 
tered by depravity. There is no corner of the world 
so dark that the rays of the divine glory are not re- 
flected there from the face of the Creation ; jno eye is 
so blind that it could not discern them by attentive 
observation. 

But if the least enlightened are under obligation to 
know God from his works, much more are they whose 
minds have been educated to reflect, and to whom 
science has laid open the mysteries of nature. If 
such assert that they can see no proofs of a Creator, 
can it be otherwise than true that they are either 
flagrantly dishonest, or pitifully weak. If they are 
not so near to idiocy as to be unable to understand 
the connection between effects and causes, can they 
be otherwise than wholly inexcusable, if they do not 
habitually and with full conviction, recognise the 
divine existence. When the voice of universal nature 
cries — " There is a God !' — our inmost souls must 
heartily respond — " There is a God !" 

And while nature, by the light which she imparts 
respecting God, lays on us the obligation to 
acknowledge him, she also binds us to adore him. It 
is obvious to reflect, that he whose power was ade- 
quate to the creation of what our eyes behold must 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 129 

be almighty. The wisdom which devised this won- 
drous mechanism, and these countless forms of beauty, 
must be imagined to be infinite. The benevolence 
which has displayed itself to such an extent in the 
production of what is good, should certainly be pre- 
sumed to be unimpeachable, even if in a few particu- 
lars the harmony of things should not be clearly seen. 
And can we know a being whose power and wisdom 
and benevolence are boundless, and not be under 
obligation to regard him with reverence and affec- 
tion ? He appears most worthy of our homage and 
our love ; if, therefore, we withhold it, we manifestly 
rob him of his right. All that is sublime in greatness, 
all that is grand in intellect, and all that is admirable 
in excellence is blended into ineffable glory in his 
character as thus exhibited ; and if we fail to think 
of him with reverence, and to contemplate his per- 
fections with delight, we clearly evince that sin has 
vitiated our moral tastes, has perverted and debased 
the best affections of our souls. 

See to it then, that you make God a living 
reality, to your daily apprehension. Be more 
observing of his works, more watchful of his provi- 
dence ; and more anxious to learn by every means, 
all that you can learn respecting him. Let the truth 
that there is a God not only not be questioned, but 

6* 



130 DISCOURSES 0^ THE * 

not lost sight of for a moment. When you lie down 
and when you rise np ; when yon sit in the house, 
and when you walk by the way ; let it be ever present 
to your thoughts. Let it comfort you in sorrow, and 
chasten the excitement of your joy. If you are 
tempted to go in the ways of sin, let it ring in your 
ears like a voice of terror ; and if you are treading in 
the paths of holiness, let it strengthen and make glad 
your souls. Let nothing tempt you to listen to the 
suggestions of scepticism even for a moment. To 
yield up the mind to them is virtually to shut your 
eyes, and to stop your ears, and with the perverseness 
of deliberate folly to plunge into the blackness of 
darkness. Atheism can shed no ray of comfort on 
the soul. It throws a j)all over the glories of the 
universe, and shrouds all things in funereal gloom. 
Take away from me the evidence that there is a God, 
and show me that I am only a product of necessity 
or chance, without a Father, and without the hope of 
that divine sympathy for which my heart is yearning, 
and I will sit down and weep through the little that 
remains of life, and wish that I bad never waked to 
conscious being. But so long as I can look over the 
broad earth, and the heaving sea, and the azure firma- 
ment, and see it written there that God exists, I will 
rejoice in my own existence, and will feel that there is 
a sun to illuminate the universe, and to diffuse through- 



FOKMLA.TION OF EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 131 

out it light and life and blessedness ! And since my 
reason teaches me to believe without a question that 

If there's a power above us— 
He must delight in virtue, 
And that which He delights in must be happy, 

— it shall be the great end of all my thoughts to 
study his perfections, and in my humble measure, to 
attain his moral image ! 



THE CHRISTIAN REVELATION TO BE 
PRESUMED DIVINE. 



2 Petter i, 16. For we have not followed cwnningly 

demsed fables. 

The existence of God admitted, anotlier question at 
once suggests itself. Has this divine Being directly 
revealed liimself and made known his will to man ? 
Of course if He be recognized as the Author of 
]N"ature, that must be acknowledged to be an expres- 
sion of his thought ; and so far as it goes, an illustra- 
tion of his attributes and character. By the careful 
study of this, to the extent of our faculties and time, 
we might expect to arrive at some practical conclu- 
sions as to what course of conduct, on our part, would 
be in accordance with his will, and would best pro- 
mote our own welfare. But has He been pleased to 
instruct men supernaturally f Apart from the les- 
sons taught by the constitution of the world and the 
orderly on-goings of the great system of natural 
(132) 



DISCOURSES, ETC. 133 

causes, has he come to the intelligent soul of man 
with immediate inspirations of his own wisdom and 
as if with words from his own lips ? 

We were taught in childhood that he has. We 
have believed it, without hesitation, up to that point 
at which we are led to reflect on all our principal be- 
liefs and to ask on what they rest. ITow doubts arise, 
and we feel the necessity of deliberate examination. 
In this period of thoughtful in quiry it is of the first 
importance that we should approach the subject, not 
only with a candid and honest spirit, with entire open- 
ness to conviction, but also with a just view of the 
position of the question. In regard to most inquiries 
in the region of practical truth, it is found that, on 
the first proposal of them, there is something to give 
the mind a prepossession in one way or another ; 
something which begets a presumption either for a 
particular conclusion, or against it. The cause of this 
bias may lie, not in the subject, but in the state of 
the mind itself; in its tastes, desires, or previous 
modes of thinking. However it may be accounted 
for, it has too generally happened that those who 
have been led to doubt the reality of divine revela- 
tion and have set themselves to examine the matter, 
have come to the inquiry with a conviction, or at 
least a feeling, that the presumption at the outset is 
against the claim that a positive revelation has been 



134 DISCOURSES ON THE 

made. Of course, tlie evidence demanded must be 
of sufficient force to overcome this unfavorable state 
of mind, as well as to convince the understanding. 

The truth, we insist, is, in fact, directly the reverse 
of this very common impression of the doubting. 
We desire to show in the present discourse, and hope 
to make it appear conclusively, that to a candid 
inquirer, who now comes to a consideration of the 
subject, there is a strong antecedent presumption in 
favor of that professed revelation which claims our 
credence in the Bible ; that such a person is justified 
in assuming that aside from its immediate and proper 
proofs, there is a high probability that these received 
deliverances of God to men are genuine and true. 

Without going into the philosophical question 
of the conceivable possibility of a revelation, or 
inquiring as to the reality of the miracles, and proph- 
ecies, and testimonies, by which it claims to be 
authenticated, we say first of all, that the very exist- 
ence of this alleged revelation, in the form in which 
we find it, affords a presumption of its truth. 

The first thing that strikes one on glancing at the 
books of the Old and New Testament, in which what 
is called the Christian revelation is contained, is the 
exceedingly heterogeneous character of their contents* 
They present a collection of the writings of a great 
number of persons, scattered through a long course 



IpRMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 135 

of ages ; of various social grades, from the condition 
of herdsmen and fishermen to that of eminent states- 
men and illustrious sovereigns ; of different sorts of 
talent, of dissimilar tastes, habits, and culture, and, to 
a great extent, unconnected with each other. Tlie 
styles of composition are as diverse as the authors. 
There are genealogies, geographical and ethnological 
details, fragmentary and connected histories ; poetry, 
includmg the pastoral, the psalm, the anthem, the 
war-song, the elegy, the drama, and the highest range 
of the descriptive and impassioned ; biographies and 
pictures of social life and manners, proverbs, dis- 
courses, precepts, parables, letters. What a medley ! 
— one might naturally exclaim on first looking at the 
volume. A little of all ages, of all sorts of men, and 
of all varieties of human thought ? This, regarding 
them simply as authentic writings, and just as you 
regard Herodotus and Livy, Plato and Seneca, Pin- 
dar and Horace. 

But on even a cursory reading of these writings, 
heterogeneous as they seem, you cannot fail to be 
equally impressed with a second fact about them — 
this, viz : that they have, after all, a strange and most 
striking unity. One^ spirit breathes throughout the 
whole. The same conception of God, as the eternal, 
self-existent, and infinite Creator, of his natural gov- 
ernment of the world, and of his moral government 



136 DISCOUESES ON THE 

of rational creatures; the same general notions of 
right and wrong ; the same views of the design of 
hnman existence, of the individual responsibility of 
men, of the blessedness of well-doing and of the mis- 
eries of sin ; of the guilt and want of mankind, of the 
justice, the goodness and the grace of God, and 
of the way of reconciliation with him. Nor does this 
unity of sentiment, of spirit, and of general scope and 
purpose seem less, but rather greater, the more care- 
fully and thoroughly these various compositions are 
examined. With all the diversities naturally resulting 
from the fact that each writer exhibits the peculiar 
characteristics of his own genius, age, country, lan- 
guage and personal condition, and notwithstanding 
that the books of the several authors were published 
independently of each other, these writings are so 
entirely alike in their moral tone, and so completely 
harmonious in their presentations of the cardinal truths 
of religion, that they appear as if originally designed 
to make one perfect whole when brought together, 
like the separate beams in the frame-work of a build- 
ing. No competent person can attentively read the 
Christian Scriptures, whatever may be his opinion 
about their origin without perceiving that there is one 
continuous stream of thought and feeling flowing 
down throughout the whole, from the earliest to the 
latest, varying only in this, that it grows deeper and 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 137 

broader by frequent homogeneous accessions as it 
sweeps onward through the ages. 

Here then is an undeniable fact to be accounted 
for. Through this line of individual men, posted at 
various intervals back to the beginning of the world, 
there have been transmitted certain distinctive views 
of God and religion, which out of this line have come 
to us from no other portion of the race. That these 
men have not been mere copyists from each other, 
the specific diversities, and the accessions and pro- 
gressive development of thought to which we have 
referred, afford decisive proof. Two questions meet 
us therefore, viz : How came they, any of them, by 
views at once so unique in themselves and so im- 
measurably superior in intellectual aifd moral eleva- 
tion to those attained by the historians, the poets and 
the sages of all the world besides ? And then, how 
came they, writing separately and each for his own 
particular end, living also some of them centuries and 
even thousands of years apart, so to harmonize with 
and to supplement each other, that taken together 
their writings form one grand and well adjusted 
whole ? "We will not now assert that with these ques- 
tions before us the conviction must arise that there 
is something supernatural in all this, and that these 
men must have been the instruments by which a real 
positive revelation has been made; but certainly it is 



138 DISCOURSES ON THE 

saying very little to say that the facts of the case, if 
candidly considered, do justify us in approaching the 
Bible, do demand even that we approach it, with a 
strong presumption that it is what it purports to be 
— the word of the living God supernaturally conveyed 
to men. If each of the authors of the sacred books, 
in liis own age, for his own ends and without the least 
relation to the others, had wrought a piece of brass 
into a given form ; and if, at last, when these pieces 
were all collected and compared, it had been found 
that they together formed a perfect piece of mechan- 
ism, a watch for instance, the impression of a super- 
human agency directing the whole matter would 
hardly have been stronger than it now actually is. 

The presumption thus created by the existence of 
the Christian revelation in the form in which we find 
it, is greatly strengthened, we have further to observe, 
by the obvious and admitted fact that it has entered 
most profoundly into the life and thought of the 
world. This current of professed revelation, that, like 
a river flowing through many lands and climes, has 
held its way through the revolutions of centuries and 
the countless vicissitudes of human aifairs, has not 
been an insulated thing, a mere object of attention 
and of interest. As the waters are not confined with- 
in the river banks, but penetrate the bordering lands, 



FORMATION OF KELIGIOFS OPINIONS. 139 

ascend in vapor to fall again in showers, and thus en- 
ter with their vitalizing power the domain of vegetable 
life ; so what have claimed to be the truths received 
from Heaven have entered into and permeated the 
heart of humanity to a wonderful extent, and exhibit 
themselves in all history, in the thought, the learning, 
the institutions, the enterprises anc^ the aspirations of 
the most enlightened and vigorous portions of the 
race. 

"We are not here giving an opinion, let it be re- 
membered ; but merely stating a fact familiar to every 
one acquainted with history and with the ideas that 
enter into our modern civilization. It has been true, 
according to all historical records, and all the sur- 
viving literature of past ages, that a belief in the unity 
of God and in his providential government of the 
world — a belief which, wherever it has existed, has 
exhibited its power to elevate human character and 
thought — has never been, held consistently and stead- 
ily, except along with a prevailing faith in revelation. 
It is equally obvious that the doctrines in regard to 
the rights of man which have for centuries been 
working their way in the most enlightened States ; 
which are steadily mitigating social evils, raising to a 
higher level the masses of the people, developing the 
sense of individual manhood and weakening the arm 
of the oppressor ; which either through institutions or 



140 DISCOURSES ON THE 

through the force of public opiuion, are exalting men 
to the responsibilities and benefits of civil and relig- 
ious liberty ; it is true, I say, that these doctrines are 
to be traced to those views of the value, the accounta- 
bility, the immortal nature and high destiny of indi- 
vidual man which were originally delivered in the so- 
called sacred boots and have never been found to 
any considerable extent, except where these are 
found. If it were possible to eliminate from the struc- 
ture of modern civilized society all the elements de- 
rived directly or indirectly from these, to withdraw 
them would be to take away what is most vital, most 
distinctive, most noble and most hopeful as regards 
the future of humanity. The very men who profess 
now to reject revealed religion, would cling with all 
tenacity to fundamental truths and principles pertain- 
ing to God, to man and to society, which have been 
derived alone from the professed records of revela- 
tion. To this it must be added, that all departments 
of the literature of the most cultivated nations — his- 
tory, eloquence, poetry, criticism and even fiction — 
as well as the higher fields of science and philosophy, 
are interfused with elements of thought, of taste, of 
imagination and with notions that enter into and de- 
termine to no small extent, the modes of reasoning 
which are adopted, the source of which is undeniably 
the same. Whether the Bible be true or false the 



FOKMATION OF EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 141 

fact is before our eyes that its contents have entered 
profoundly into the mind and heart of humanity and 
have to a great extent become blended with its intel- 
lect and sentiment alike. 

Nor can it be said that other pretended systems of 
religion have done the same. There are no facts of 
history by which such an assertion can be justified. 
What claims to be the Christian revelation extends 
back to the beginning of the world, and covers the 
whole period of the world's life ; always self-consis- 
tent, the same in essence, and changing only so far as 
change is necessa^-ily implied in a progressive and or- 
derly development. It has no parallel among the 
systems which have only existed for comparatively 
short periods and have been subject to constant modi- 
fications of their essential character. It has reached 
a vastly larger portion of the race, than any one of 
them. It has wrought far more deeply and effective- 
ly so far as it has extended. We have in this view, 
certainly, a good ground for presuming at once its 
reality and its intrinsic reasonableness and power. 

Still further, a third fact lies before us in regard to 
the asserted Christian revelation, which, fairly consid- 
ered, must predispose us to receive it. To the state- 
ment just made that it has entered deeply into the 
world's life, we have to add, what is equally signifi- 



142 DISCOUESES ON THE 

cant, that the effects which it has wrought, both on 
individual man and on society, have uniformly been 
salutary in a very eminent degree. 

That the principles of action, the spirit insisted on, 
and the ends proposed in the Christian revelation 
are eminently pure and noble, the stoutest unbelief 
has never hesitated to acknowledge. That the influ- 
ence of these things on those with whose minds and 
hearts they are brought in contact, must be very 
positive and eminently good is of course a necessary 
conclusion from the nature of the case. The whole 
history of Christianity, and of Judaism as well, is 
rich, moreover, in illustration of its actual effects. 
Let it not be imagined that we are going about to 
show, that faith in revelation has not been sometimes 
found associated with ignorance and superstition, and 
individual and social degeneracy. "We have no 
reluctance to the admission that it has. But what 
we state is, and no intelligent person can dispute it, 
that the fact is patent that these evils never have 
resulted^ and never can result^ from a belief in revel- 
ation and the legitimate influence of the truths 
professedly revealed. As Christianity has come in 
contact with mankind in all degrees of culture, it has 
been received by the ignorant, the superstitious, and 
the degraded. As its good influences can only oper- 
ate in a gradual manner for the improvement of 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 143 

character, and as they are liable to be impeded 
in their action by accidental causes found in the 
particular outward condition of those who may enjoy 
them, it may often happen in the case of any indi- 
vidual or people, that although the process of 
improvement is steadily going forward, there are 
evils, great and obvious, which have not been reached 
as yet. Unless it appears that the evils referred to 
are the natural and proper fruit of the influence of 
the Christian Scriptures, or, at least, that this has no 
fitness nor tendency to effect their ultimate removal, 
their existence in connection with a belief in revela- 
tion, cannot rightfully create a prejudice against the 
'claim of that revelation to be real and divine. 

But while Christianity does not appear at any time 
to have delivered mankind at once and wholly, on 
the first reception of it, from the evils under the 
power of which it found them, the exarnples of its 
eminently salutary effects, on both individual and 
social character, are, in all periods of its history, 
abundant and acknowledged. When first preached 
among the polytheistic, licentious, and generally cor- 
rupt nations, included in the Eoman Empire, it ere 
long did what the few moralists and sages of antiquity 
had sought to do in vain ; it gave a fatal blow to the 
popular idolatry, and in spite of venerable associa- 
tions and splendid shrines and captivating ceremonies, 



14:4 DISCOUKSES ON THE 

it broiiglit the gods into general contempt, and left 
their temples to stand empty and deserted. Then 
out of the degenerate masses of the people it raised 
up vast multitudes, of both sexes and of all ages and 
conditions, in whose lives the purest virtues, and in 
whose sufferings and deaths, in attestation of the 
sincerity and strength of their belief, the sternest and 
the noblest heroism, were everywhere exhibited. All 
this on the testimony of secular and unfriendly histo- 
rians, of imperial edicts and Eoman annalists. The 
very highest instances of unpretending goodness, of 
unfaltering steadiness of principle, of generous self- 
sacrifice, of obedience to the sense of duty, of sublime 
courage to endure, are, by common consent, admitted 
to abound in the authentic records of the noble army 
of Christian martyrs and confessors. These, too, are 
allowed to be the proper products of Christianity, 
and not things incidentally connected with it. 

It has sometimes seemed to careless or superficial 
readers of history that the state of the western 
nations of the old world during the middle ages, 
when Christianity had been established and generally 
diffused, was in confiict with the supposition of its 
elevating power. The dark ages, they observe, suc- 
ceded the early and widely-extended triumphs of the 
cross. Yes, but along with this, we have another 
fact that stands in equal prominence beside it. The 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 145 

mighty deluge of barbarism that swept over the 
Roman Empire, was sufficiently vast in its extent to 
engulf, as in the bosom of a mighty ocean, all the 
elements and forces of the existing civilization, and 
Christianity among the rest. Intellectual and moral 
twilight was a necessary consequence ; and it could 
not have been otherwise than that a long period 
would be required in order that Christianity, operat- 
ing simply as one restoring energy in the abysses of 
this vast chaos, might make itself distinctly seen and 
felt in its proper character and influence. ]^o won- 
der that a little leaven overwhelmed with a continent 
of meal, should be long in pervading the whole mass. 
That the influence of Christianity did much to miti- 
gate and to remove the horrors of the medieval 
darkness, and that it has supplied many of the best 
ideas, activities, and elevating forces of our modern 
civilization, are facts about which there is no dispute 
among those who are competent to offer an opinion. 
It is owing in no small measure, to state the matter 
very moderately, to the influence of Christianity, 
that humanity has so far emerged from its deep and 
long eclipse. 

It must be noted, too, that in the activity of that 
new life and free expansion to which Christianity has 
again attained, especially within the present century, 
she is producing in the sight of all men, the same 

T 



146 DISCOURSES ON THE 

wonderful transformations of individual and social 
character, tlie same spirit of benevolence, tlie same 
noble charities, the same antagonism to evil, the same 
hopes and labors for the welfare of mankind, the 
same virtues, culture, and refinement, and the same 
sober, intelligent, and healthful piety, as in her early 
days. Never was it more manifest than now that 
the legitimate fruits of the Christian revelation are 
eminently salutary, are contributing richly to the 
well-being of the world. Can it be otherwise than 
rational to presume that such a professed revelation 
will prove on examination to be genuine ? 

Not less significant is a fourth fact which presents 
itself at the outset to the inquirer about the Christian 
revelation. It has thus far stood secure against all 
assaults of those who have sought to overthrow it, 
although these assaults have been many, persistent, 
and often conducted with great ability and learning. 
Nothing pertaining to the past is better known than 
that the attempt to storm the citadel of revelation 
has been repeated till it seems to have been assailed 
at every point ; and that it still remains unearned we 
have the witness of our own eyes and ears. 

Tlie ancient prophets, each in his turn, encountered 
the resistance of unbelief. They were charged with 
prophecying falsely in the name of God ; of arrogat- 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 147 

ing to themselves the office and authority of religious 
teachers, and wishing to secure a preeminence of 
influence. They suffered persecution and sometimes 
death at the hands of those who denied their divine 
authority. Yet their teachings lived, and gained and 
and kept a place in the hearts of multitudes. When 
Jesus of ITazareth appeared and claimed to be the 
predicted Messiah and the Eedeemer and Light of 
the World, a corrupt Judaism expressed the strength 
of its hostility, the venom of its hate, by nailing him, 
as if a malefactor, to the cross. When the apostles 
and the primitive disciples began at Jerusalem the 
preaching of the word, they too, were met with an 
equally determined and virulent opposition from 
those who, because not understanding their own 
Scriptures, did not perceive that Christianity was but 
the full development of the faith delivered to their 
fathers. Yet steadily the Christian doctrines won 
their way. 

Then followed the long and mighty struggle be- 
tween Christianity and the prevailing systems of 
philosophy and religion throughout the Eoman 
Empire. It was a contest of life and death. From 
the nature of the case there could be no compromise, 
no truce. The new must exterminate the old, or the 
old the new. On every ground on which there 
seemed to be any hope of making a stand against the 



148 DISCOUKSES ON THE 

advancing Christian faith, a stand was made. At 
every point imagined to be vulnerable tlie system 
was pressed with, direct attack. Whatever might he 
done by tlie civil power to resist and* crush, the 
Christian religion, was done with, unflinching deter- 
mination and barbarity, not only by the steady policy 
of the government, but by those" horrible and repeated 
seasons of persecution during which the earth was 
deluged with martyr blood. Whatever might be 
achieved, or hoped, in the same direction by the use 
of the pen, was attempted by learned and able 
writers, such as Lucian, Celsus, Porphyry, Hierocles, 
and others, who, not content with a defence of the 
popular beliefs^ assailed the religion of Christ with 
argument and ridicule, with misrepresentation and 
abuse. Yet after all, the Christian faith held on its 
way and triumphed. 

So it has been in the modern w^orld. Tlie wits, 
philosophers, and savans of France, in the last cen- 
tury, having resolved, in a spirit of implacable 
hostihty, to exterminate all faith in the Christian 
revelation, assailed it with pungent satire, with the 
coarsest ribaldry, with caricatures introduced into 
the drama, and all the current forms of popular liter- 
ature, with the subtlety and acuteness of philosophy, 
and with weapons alleged to be fm-nished by the 
discoveries of modern science. English Deism, in a 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 149 

higher style of thought, with greater strength of 
reasoning, with no little real - learning, enlisting 
champions who, to great metaphysical acumen, added 
untiring patience and fixed determination, attacked 
the historical credit, the supernatural credentials and 
the asserted revelations of the Christian Scriptures. 
There was no lack of will or talent, or diligent 
endeavor, for the entire demolition of the venerable 
structure of truth accepted as from heaven. Germany 
with her unrivalled scholarship, her unflinching bold- 
ness, her amazing keenness of analysis and tenuity of 
thought, and her adventurous criticism, has so put to 
the torture the historic records, and the peculiar 
doctrines of Christianity, as to make it impossible to.- 
conceive that any more formidable trial can await 
them. And, finally, the latest forms of German 
unbelief have flowed into the channels of English 
and American thought, and now for several years 
have been making demonstrations against the popular 
faith in a positive revelation. 

"What then is the result? Has the idea of a divine 
revelation come to be scouted generally either by 
the most intelligent and the best thinkers, or by the 
great mass of ordinary people ? Has a single pillar 
of Christianity, by common acknowledgement, been 
removed out of its place ? Has one entrenchment 
undeniably been carried, or one battery silenced, or 



150 DISCOURSES ON THE 

one breastwork left in ruins 'i Who affirms this ? 
Who believes it ? It is doubtless true, that now, as 
always, there are some who reject revealed religion. 
But it is equally obvious that the vast majority of 
all who have at any time heartily believed Christi- 
anity, believe it still, nay more, believe it the more 
intelligently and strongly because of the fierce 
assaults through which it has been passing. Observe 
we are not asserting that Christianity is true, we are 
simply calling attention to the fact that unbelief, 
though it has made the attempt so often and with all 
imaginable weapons, has not yet proved it false^ nor 
even weakened its hold upon the' mind and heart of 
that part of th« human race who have once intelli- 
gently received it. Approaching Christianity to-day 
as an inquirer in relation to its truth, I see it standing 
not shattered and tottering by the multiplied assaults 
of ages, but as yet unharmed and safe ; a Malakoff, 
that hitherto has proved impregnable ; or better still, 
a grand old rock that, lying in mid-ocean, and beaten 
by mighty surges through successive centuries, still 
lifts its untroubled head in stern yet calm repose. Is 
it not natural, then, since such I find it, that I should 
come to this professedly divine religion, with a strong 
presumption arising in my heart that what it claims 
to be, I shall actually find it when I have thoroughly 
examined ? 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 151 

We will note but one thing more. It is a fact 
wliicli no one tolerably informed as to tlie condition 
and movements of tlie religious world will questior, 
tliat at no period of its history was Christianity more 
vital, more powerful, more expectant and progressive, 
than at the present time. There may have been an 
intenser earnestness and loftier courage in the day of 
her primitive conquests ; but then she was weak in 
numbers and resources. To-day, her host is vast in 
multitude. In position she is strong; for she is 
openly recognised by the public sentiment of the 
most enlightened nations of the earth, and her 
principles are inwrought to a very great extent into 
the governments and laws, the institutions, the policies, 
the social life, in short, into the entire structure of 
civilization, by w^hich these nations are distinguished. 
How vast the amount of genius and learning enlisted 
in her service ! flow large a portion of literature and 
art and science is penetrated with her spirit ! How 
immense the wealth at her command ! How extensive 
and available her opportunities and means of bringing 
her influence to bear upon the world ! Within the 
last half century she seems to have awaked to new 
activity and to have girded up her loins for more 
extended and energetic action. Converts to her are 
multiplied by hundreds of thousands in a single year, 
and tliese not converts of the hear! only, but of the 



152 DISCOUESES ON THE 

heart. Her Sacred Books are translated into all the 
chief languages of men. Her efforts are more than 
ever directed to the elevation and purification of 
social life, and the recovery of the world to goodness, 
by the universal application of her forces. Her plans 
are broad as the world. Her heralds are found in 
the remote islands of the sea, and in the centre of 
continents long covered with thick darkness. The 
force of habit is coming to strengthen the religious 
sentiment and conviction of her disciples, and to give 
steadiness and power to their exertions. The success 
of her domestic and foreign missionary enterprises, 
are stimulating her courage and inspiring her with 
hope. Grod, in his Providence, finally, has done so 
much to remove the obstacles that in past ages 
checked her progress, that her expansive energy is 
now almost literally working without obstruction. 

All this I see, you see, and all men see on every 
side. This life and vigor and progressive energy of 
the system of religion which rests on that professed 
revelation begun in the early ages of the world and 
completed in the days of Christ and his Apostles, is 
certainly a most noticeable fact. It cannot but make 
a strong impression on every one who thoughtfully 
regards it. Can falsehood be imagined to have such 
vitality? Could any thing but truth have so sus- 
tained itself through the revolving cycles of the past, 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 153 

that while empires, and dynasties, and cities, and 
monuments, and even literatures have perished, this 
should still seem as fresh as if immortal, and as full 
of activity and power as if in youth? Could any 
thing have maintained so permanent a hold on the 
intellect and heart of the human race, a hold still 
growing firmer and giving promise of ultimate ascen- 
dancy, which itself was without reality, a mere chim- 
era ? It will surely be admitted that taking what is 
called the Christian revelation as I find it, living, op- 
erative, and steadily extending the circle of its influ- 
ence, while I bear in mind its history, there does ap- 
pear to be a very strong presumption that its claims 
to be divine are just, before I begin to examine 
directly its credentials. 

Eemember then, that so much as this is set- 
tled. When doubts have been excited and you 
would seriously inquire as to the truth of the Chris- 
tian revelation, you have no right, at this period of 
Christian history, to assume that the probability is all 
against it, and to call on Christianity to furnish proofs 
that may convince you, while in such a state of mind, 
beyond all cavil. She has her proper credentials, 
doubtless, if she bo indeed from heaven, and she will 
not hesitate to show them. But since the facts of her 
ancient origin, of her perpetual power, of her salutary 



154 DISCOUESES ON THE 

influence, of her steadfastness amidst attacks, and of 
her present vigor and advancing growth, create so 
strong a presumption in her favor, she is fairly enti- 
tled to take the benefit of her position. She may 
rightfully throw the burden of proof on you. She 
may demand, with justice, that you shall admit her 
claims until you sJiall le able conelusively and finally 
to overthrow them j until you can rationally account 
for her origin and character, her progressive life and 
action, in short for all the wonderful phenomena of 
her past and present existence. When you shall have 
seriously attempted this, you will have put yourself 
in a position to appreciate the proofs direct and posi- 
tive, which she will then hold herself prepared to 
offer you. 

Deal fairly, then, when you approach with- 
your inquiries the Christian revelation. You see 
at a glance how venerable it is — going back for 
its beginnings to the morning of the world. You 
know that in its light and hope and inspiration, hu- 
manity has been exalted, intellect and genius quick- 
ened, art and science born, individual and social life 
ennobled, and truth and justice, benevolence and 
moral virtue in all forms, promoted among men. 
You have it in certain knowledge, that millions of 
the wisest, the greatest, and the best of earth, mil- 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 155 

lions of the poor, the sorrowful, the oppressed, mil- 
lions of every capacity, condition, and age, have found 
in heartily believing it, new life and pure affections, 
a solid inward peace, tranquility amidst life's fiercest 
storms, and deep serenity of soul, or joyful exultation, 
in the darkness and agony of death. Admit then to 
yourself, that, w^ith all these facts before you the pre- 
sumption is so strong in favor of its truth, that it is 
most "unreasonable to ask for such an amount and kind 
of immediate proof as would leave no possibility of 
eavil. Enough if it be found sustained by evidence 
which must convince and satisfy a truly honest and 
impartial mind. 

Consider too that if the Christian revelation, as it 
has been received for ages, is divine, it must be the 
greatest of misfortunes to reject it as a fable. If it 
be indeed a sun kindled of God to illuminate the 
moral darkness of our world, it will shine on to cheer 
and w^arm and bless the happy multitudes who wel- 
come it, though you shall avert your eyes and hide 
from its beams in the thick shades of unbelief. You 
have nothing — nothing — to gain if it be false. You 
have everything to hope for life, for death, for an im- 
mortality beyond, if, as you have been taught from 
childhood to believe, it is indeed a real utterance, a 
precious gift of the Everliving God to man. May 



156 DISCOUESES, ETC. 

God enable every one of you to say witli full convic 
tion, — "The word of God is heard in the Christian 
Scriptures. For we have not followed cunningly de- 
vised fables !" 



CHRISTIANITY AUTHENTICATED IN THE 
EXPERIENCE OF ITS POWER. 



John, VI. 67-9. Then said Jesus unto the twelve. 
Will ye also go away ? Then Simon Peter an- 
swered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou 
hast the words of eternal life. And we helieve 
and are sure that thou art that Christ, the 8o7i 
of the living God. 

Among those who attended on the ministry of 
Christ, there were found, it appears, two sorts of 
professed disciples. There were some who were 
ready to attach themselves to him as followers, that 
were disciples of the understanding merely. They 
had observed his personal character. They had been 
struck with the extraordinary wisdom of his teachings. 
They had witnessed many of his mighty works, and 
had listened to the expositions he had given of many 
passages in the prophets, as pointing to himself. 
(157) 



158 DISCOUESES ON THE 

On the whole, it seemed to them that the evidence 
of his Messiahship preponderated ; and they were 
inclined to reckon themselves as his adherents. 

The other class, were, in some degree at least, 
disciples of the Spirit. With views of his character 
and mission as yet exceedingly defective in" some 
particulars, they nevertheless felt the divine power 
of the doctrines which he taught. In the conscious- 
ness which they found deep within themselves that 
his words were indeed spirit and life to the soul, 
there was an inward witness, that he came from 
heaven — the ground of a profound and heartfelt con- 
viction that he was really the Christ of God. 

There is nothing to excite surprise in the fact that 
those whose profession of discipleship was merely 
speculative and intellectual, were brought to a stand, 
and even led to abandon Christ by difficulties. Their 
own power to understand what Jesus did and said, 
was the measure of their faith. So long as they saw 
and heard nothing which they did not seem to them- 
selves to comprehend — nothing which puzzled and 
perplexed them — they were ready to admit his claims. 
But when he uttered in their hearing truths which 
were so spiritual and so repugnant to their sensuous 
apprehensions, as those which related to the receiving 
of his body and blood as the condition, and the ele- 



FORMATION OF EELlGflOUS OPmiONS. 159 

ments of life, their understaiidings were confounded ; 
and because of tliis, tliey forthwith turned back, and 
concluded that they had been deceived. This was 
entirely natural. 

But in regard to those who were driven to attach 
themselves to Christ by an inward perception of 
something divine in his person and his ministry, and 
by the response which his teachings awakened in 
their own moral natures, the case was wholly differ- 
ent. The faith of these did not rest on mere convic- 
tions of the intellect. It had a far deeper and more 
certain ground. Because this was the fact ; because 
their inmost hearts felt the divinity which was in 
Christ, and their moral natures recognised, and wit- 
nessed to the certainty of what he taught, it was 
not possible that any difficulties should overturn their 
confidence and drive them from him. Their under- 
standings might be baffled ; strange mysteries, and 
even apparent impossibilities and contradictions, 
might confront them. But what then? After all, 
there remained a voice in their own consciousness, 
which gave decisive and persistent witness to the 
Messiah ship of Christ, and to the truth of the doc- 
trines he delivered ; so that when the question was 
propounded as is related in the text — will ye also go 
away ? — ^it was altogether natural that they should 



160 DISCOUESES ON THE 

answer as they did, repelling the thought of such a 
thing at once. It was, for them, impossible not to 
feel that to turn away from Christ, whatever perplex- 
ities might press them for the moment, would be to 
act in known and flagrant opposition to the truth. 
They could not but believe what they themselves had 
felt as vital truth, in their inmost souls. To go away 
from one who had the words of Eternal life— and in 
regard to whom they were able to say — we believe, 
and are sure, that thou art that Christ, the Son of the 
Living God, seemed nothing short of the most pre- 
posterous folly. 

Here then we have presented to oar thoughts a 
most important fact : this, namely, that those who 
really enter into the Spirit of Christianity, and feel 
somewhat of its true impression on their souls ; find, 
in their own experience of its power, the most con- 
clusive and satisfying proof that it is indeed a divine 
religion. We wish, in the present discourse, to set 
forth this fact distinctly. . It is no part of our purpose 
to undervalue the various other kinds of evidence on 
which the certainty of the Christian revelation rests ; 
but simply to insist that even leaving these aside, the 
Gospel in itself — in its own peculiar power and life — 
does carry directly to the soul that cordially receives 
it, the undeniable credentials of divinity ; does gener- 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 161 

ate within an experimental consciousness in wliich 
there is good and sufficient warrant for a firm, unfalt- 
ering faith ; a faith which places the suggestion of an 
abandonment of Christ, in the light of a sheer 
absurdity. 

First, then, let us set before us, as distinctly as we 
can, the state of an intelligent and thoughtful person 
who as yet has not heartily received the Gospel, He 
has been led, we will suppose, to some degree of 
acquaintance with himself, and to some serious reflec- 
tions on the destiny that may await him. 

What, then, are his convictions and feelings? 
What sort of a self-consciousness has he ? What are 
the obstacles he finds in the way of being satisfied 
and happy ? 

He has, first of all, a deep and painful conviction 
that he is out of his right relations to God and to the 
universe. He has not, perhaps, very definite appre- 
hensions of the nature and extent of the moral obli- 
gations he is under. He does not understand precisely 
what God would have him be and do. But yet Im 
knows enough to know that the main drift of both 
his inward and his outward life is wrong ; so that he 
is by no means such a being as he should be. That 
he wants delight in God ; that he lacks the moral 
qualities which belong to a holy being ; that, with a 



162 DISCOURSES ON THE 

strange and humiliating depravity of moral appetite, 
he is prone continually to what is evil ; he is quite 
distinctly conscious : and all this, he is convinced, 
should be directly the reverse. He is, therefore, 
self-condemned. Conscience, whenever he listens to 
her voice, declares that he is a guilty creature. Of 
course he also feels that God condemns him, and that 
justly. The ineffable holiness of the divine charac- 
ter, when he turns his thoughts in that direction, 
awakens emotions of terror only — none of love — 
within his heart. If he reads or hears the law 
of God, and ponders on its import, it is only to per 
ceive that the weight of its condemnation, the terrible 
wrath which it denounces, rests upon himself ; and 
so, turn where he will, resort to what he will, he has 
a wearying, crushing burden on his soul. 

Along with this, he has the consciousness of moral 
weakness too. Instead of healthful and tender sensi- 
bilities, there is within him the coldness of a death- 
like apathy. Instead of activity and power to under- 
take and to perform the right, he seems to himself 
H^numbed and palsied, as it were, and impotent to 
good. The harmony of his being is all gone ; and 
like a piece of complicated mechanism, whose wheels 
have lost their original adjustment, and no longer 
play aright into each other, his moral faculties are 
all ajar, and will not be combined for the working 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 163 

out of good. His occasional better impulses are 
overborne by tlie power of evil. He is in bondage 
to corruption. It is in vain that he sometimes 
resolves and makes some struggles to get free. Such 
efforts come to nothing, and only serve to show him 
how heavy and how strong the chains that bind him 
are. He finds, as a fact of fearful omen, that by a 
law that reigns within him, when he would do good, 
evil is present with him. 

Still further, in addition to all this, he feels deep 
in his soul, desires the most insatiable and restless. 
With all his efforts he has not been able in the least 
to appease the sense of inward want. He has often 
fancied that he was going to do it speedily ; but he 
has always found himself deceived. ]^o pleasures of 
sense, no gratifications of imagination and of taste, 
no heights of honor or of power, no treasures of 
knowledge, no gifts of genius consciously possessed, 
no affluence and magnificence of wealth ; not any, 
nor all, of the many forms of finite good which sur- 
round him on all sides, and of which he has been 
able to make experiment, or form a judgment, appear 
when carefully examined, at all adapted to satisfy 
the craving which he feels. He is sure, at last, that 
they cannot do it. His longings are for something 
congenial with the highest and the strongest instincts 
of his spiritual nature. It is something vast, some- 



164 DISCOUESES ON THE 

thing noble, something infinitely grand and lovely, 
something holy and divine, and endnring as Eternity 
itself, that he is reaching after. He knows not what 
it is, nor where, nor how, he is ever going to find it. 
Yet he perceives that so long as such appetites are 
burning unsatisfied within his soul, he never can 
have rest, never can even approximate to a state of 
happiness. Look where he will, try what he will, 
his heart yearneth evermore. 

Such is a very general, and of course a very imper- 
fect sketch, of the state of an enlightened and seri- 
ously reflecting person, who has not as yet received 
Christ and the Gospel to his heart. What with the 
sense of guilt that haunts him, the want of moral 
strength and freedom which he feels, and the 
consciousness of necessities that nothing he has 
found will satisfy, he has in his own bosom all the 
ingredients of a hopeless wretchedness — the elements 
indeed of hell itself. There needs nothing but the 
steady march of time, as he all too plainly sees, to fill 
up the measure of his iniquity and his despair. 

Now let us, in the second place, suppose that this 
same person is led, through divine grace, heartily to 
believe the Gospel — to make the actual experiment 
of its power upon himself. He accepts Christianity 
as a system really from God. He sees in its provi- 
sions a ground of hope for him. He commits his soul 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 165 

to Christ, as the New Testament directs, and believes 
the promise that through his sacrifice and mediation, 
he shall be accepted of God, and sanctified and saved. 
He is now a Christian, in the true and spiritual mean- 
ing of the term. He has begun to know, by its influ- 
ence felt within him, how much efficiency the Gospel 
really has, as a means of relief for necessities like his. 
What then is the result? What has he found in 
Christ, and in his word ? 

He has found first, pardon and justification. At 
the sight of Jesus — God's own Son — voluntarily suflfer- 
ing in his stead — bearing his iniquity— dying to re- 
deem him from the curse — he feels that mercy may 
be shown to him — a sinner, and yet divine justice be 
untarnished. His own conscience is satisfied. The 
law of God he perceives is honored without his pun- 
ishment. His heart, once cold and hard, is melted 
now ; and he weeps warm, gushing tears of genuine 
contrition, while he gazes long and tenderly on the 
great atoning sacrifice. E'ow the pressure of his con- 
scious guilt is gone. His sins are not forgotten ; he 
never — never can forget them. Nor has he ceased to 
feel that they are hateful ; on the contrary, he loathes 
them more and more. But they do not make him 
wretched now. Tliey do not fill his soul with fears. 
The thunders of the law are hushed. When he 
ventures to look upward to the holy throne of God, he 



166 DISCOUESES ON THE 

meets the greeting smile of a Father reconciled, and 
perceives that he is now acknowledged as a child of 
the Most High. In short, he is the ble'ssed man 
whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sin is covered, 
and to whom there remaineth no more condemnation. 
He is justified by faith and has peace with God — a 
consciousness of inward harmony, both with his char- 
acter and government. 

He has found, too, inward grace — the grace of the 
Holy Ghost — which has now begun to work effectu- 
ally in that weak, disordered, fettered soul of his, that 
but a little while before was so powerless in relation 
to all good. The pulses of new life have begun to 
beat within his heart. The spirit that helpeth his 
infirmities, has so quickened his moral sensibilities, 
that now they feel the impression of holy objects. 
The enfeebled powers have received new vigor ; and 
by the healthful stimulus of holy love are urged into 
activity in the attempt to meet the demands of duty. 
If there are yet conflicts, many conflicts, in his heart, 
yet sin no longer reigns there. His enemies give 
back. The all-sufficient grace of Christ sustains his 
feebleness, and enables him not only to maintain his 
ground, but to gain successive victories. In a word, 
he who before was in a miserable bondage, and could 
not break his bands, has now begun to taste the free- 
dom of the holy ; — is fast becoming divested of all his 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 167 

fetters ; and in the strength of God, already exults in 
the prospect of certain and complete deliverance. He 
feels himself, in this respect, a new creature in Christ 
Jesus. 

Finally, the person whose case we are suppos- 
ing, in making trial of Christ and of his Gospel, has 
found the inward satisfaction which his craving soul 
desired. We do not mean to say that his satisfaction 
is yet perfect. In the earlier stages of his Christian 
life, the influences of the Christian scheme of grace 
and truth, have only begun to reach and affect his 
heart ; and of course have only answered their end in 
part. But so much as this is true. This man who 
jnst now felt that he had appetites that never yet had 
found their proper objects ; who felt the inexpressible 
longings of a soul whose profoundest wants were 
wholly unrelieved ; this restless, hungry, thirsty, often 
baffled and deeply disappointed spirit, — has now at 
last discovered a full supply of the very good he 
craves. He has found and recognized the bread of 
life. He has come to the gushing fountain of sweet 
waters, and at once perceives that this will slake effec- 
tually his so long quenchless thirst. He no longer 
has occasion to weary himself with fruitless search- 
ings. It only now remains that he eat and drink till 
he is filled and satisfied, — till his soul rests because it 
has nothing to desire. 



168 DISCOURSES ON THE 

Tims, then, tlie man who before he tried for him- 
self the efficacy of Christianity as a remedy for his 
distresses, was oppressed with a consciousness of guilt, 
was held through moral weakness in a grievous vas- 
salage to evil, and was tortured constantly by crav- 
ings that could not be appeased ; has found, on actu- 
ally admitting the Gospel to his heart, his sense of 
guilt removed, his shattered nature raised up and dis- 
enthralled, and his famishing spirit put in possession 
of a full supply of congenial and satisfying good. He 
has received into his soul, with Christ and the Gospel, 
the germs of immortal life and the beginnings of an 
immortal blessedness. iPhis, he has learned by his 
own personal experience, is what Christianity can do 
for a sinful man like him. 

With such a case before us, as this which we have 
stated, — and this is only the case of ordinary occur- 
rence — we are put in a position to see and feel the 
force of the experimental argument for the truth and 
value of the Gospel. Here is a man who when he 
was guilty, helpless, and pining with inward want, 
has been induced to make trial of the Christian me- 
thod of relief. He has come to Christ for help, and 
thankfully accepted the provisions of his Gospel. In 
doing this he has found effectual deliverance from his 
miseries, — the very deliverance he sought. He has 
reached the very hapj)iness which his soul instinctively 



FOKMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 169 

demanded, and which he had ranged creation over, 
all in vain, to find. There is no mistake in this. He 
was wretched ; — ^he is at peace. He was in galling 
chains ; — he is in glorious liberty. He was perishing 
of inward hunger ; — he is rejoicing in a satisfaction 
that is in its nature pure and full, and needs only to 
be made complete in measure. 

And now suppose you go to him with difficulties — 
you try to shake his confidence in the divinity of the 
Christian scheme — you object to the mysteries it in- 
volves. You point to its hard sayings. You tell him 
of the uncertainties of human testimony ; of the lia- 
bility of history, and even of records to corruption ; 
of antagonism between Christian doctrine and the 
teachings of reason and pliilosopliy ; of myths and al- 
legories, converted into narratives of facts, and so on 
to the end of all that you can urge ; and what, when 
you have done ? Can you destroy his consciousness ? 
Can you take from him the memory of the past, or 
change the reality of the present ? Can you convince 
him that he never has experienced what he knows 
that he has experienced as well as he knows that he 
exists ? Will any thing constrain him to believe, that 
He was not from heaven, whose word and Spirit have 
wrought with such heavenly energy upon himself? — 
that that Gospel is not from God, which has had pow- 
er to recover his poor wandering soul to holy life and 



170 DISCOUESES ON THE 

happiness in God, and to fit it to serve and enjoj him 
even as the angels ? No : none of all these things is 
it possible to do — in the case of one who has reallj 
liad experience of the effect of the Gospel heartily re- 
ceived. Just in proportion to the clearness and cer- 
tainty of the experience, will be, in each particular 
case, the strength of the conviction that Jesus is in- 
deed the Son of God ; and that in Him, there is help 
and hope for all the sinful and the suffering who will 
take him as their Saviour. You may as well convince 
the recovering patient, that the balm which has sooth- 
ed and healed his smarting wounds, is poison ; as well 
persuade a man who was famished, but has eaten and 
been nourished into strength again, that the food 
which has refreshed him and satisfied his appetite, is 
innutritious and unwholesome, as bring the thorough- 
ly experimental Christian to conclude that the Gospel 
is not true. It is in this way that we explain the fact, 
— at which unbelief has sometimes sneered — that 
thousands have lived and died in a tranquil and un- 
faltering faith, who never read or heard a formal ar- 
gument for the truth of their religion, and were al- 
most wholly uninstructed in the historic proofs. Let 
it not be falsely said, that they have been believers 
without evidence — mere dotards, who believed be- 
cause they were so taught. The farthest possible 
from this is true. They had the highest kind of evi- 



FORMATION OF KELIGIOTTS OPINIONS. 171 

dence on wliicli to rest tlieir faith. Instead of raising 
questions about the Gospel, they put it to the test. — 
They actually tried its saving power and found it 
mighty to restore tlieir souls ; and so they knew it to 
be divinely true. It was enough for them that it as- 
suaged their inward anguish ; that it dried their tears 
of sorrow ; that it gave them life, and power and free- 
dom, along with the peace of God that passeth under- 
standing ; that it stripped death of its chief terrors 
and enabled them to see, far over the dark waters, 
the shining gates and the serene abodes of Heaven. 
They hneio in whom they had believed. 

This, then, you will perceive, is the alternative 
which is presented to the mind of every person who 
has so entered into the spirit of Christianity as i-eally 
to have felt its power, — when the question of its truth 
is agitated, viz : to consent to bear the miseries and 
wants of which the sinful soul is conscious, unrelieved ; 
or quietly to rest upon the truth of that which gives 
him the relief he needs, unto the end. Precisely in 
this way the matter presented itself to the disciples 
according to the text. Will ye also go away ? — was 
the question asked to test them. Lord, to whom 
shall we go ? was the reply — Tliou hast the words of 
eternal life. Nothing to be found, away from Christ 
—all to be found in Christ. Who would ojf sent to 



172 DISCOUESES ON THE 

turn awaj from blessedness when he has found it — or 
entertain the idea at all, that that which blesses him 
supremely is mere falsehood and deceit? A wise 
man must answer in this manner : — Ask me to go 
away from Christ and disbelieve his words ! Go 
where ? I must demand. I cannot go to Paganism. 
Is systems, even the most ancient and refined of 
them, have become effete and dead, besides that they 
are grovelling and mean. I cannot go to Judaism. 
The vail of its temple has been rent, and it is only a 
body from which the spirit has departed. I cannot 
go to Atheism ; ah, no — for it crushes the soul's last 
hope and fills the universe with gloom. I cannot go 
to Deism ; it offers nothing to relieve my conscience, 
or warm my soul with life. I cannot go even to Phil- 
osophy, however plausibly and acutely she discourses ; 
she will but freeze my heart amidst her cold abstrac- 
tions, or leave me, hopelessly bewildered in her laby- 
rinths, to starve. I cannot go to any creature — ^nor 
any finite thing ; not even an angel could give me the 
relief I need, and my desires cry out for something 
as a good, that is infinite and divine. Where, then 
— oh, tell me where I am to go, when I turn my back 
upon the Gospel. In Christ, I find just what I can- 
not do without — Eternal Life ! Why should I let it 
go? How can I for an instant doubt that be is Truth 
itself, who brings mw this great gift? He must be 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 173 

the true Saviour of tlie world, who has delivered me 
from sin and wrath, has brought me into sympathy 
and peace with God, and has given me the beginnings 
of a full and satisfying blessedness. Ah, yes — thou 
in whom I have found salvation ! — I helieve and am 
sure^ that thou art that Christ the son of the Living 
God! 

It is thus, that our holy religion, the faith of 
Jesus Christ, authenticates itself to those who 
make a fair experiment of its power. It so meets the 
entire necessities of the sinful human soul, as to leave 
nothing more to be desired. Its efficacy is the abso- 
lute demonstration of its truth. 

It may then easily be seen where those who 
follow Christ may find the cause of their occa- 
sional misgivings — of the questionings and doubts, 
which, perhaps, in their darker hours, disturb 
them. If we, who are believers, are sometimes 
so disturbed ; if now and then, the mists of un- 
certainty seem to gather in our spiritual horizon, one 
of two things, it is obvious must be true. Either the 
experience which we have of the effects of the Gospel 
on the soul, is very small ; or else we have not suf- 
ficiently attended to it, and reflected on its import. 
E"o doubt with far too many of us, the first, is the real 



174 DISCOURSES ON THE 

truth. It is but very poorly that we have tested the 
power of Christ and of the Gospel. We have not en- 
tered deeply and earnestly enough into the spirit of 
the vital and peculiar Christian truths. We have 
given too little time and thought to the right under- 
standing of their application to ourselves. We have 
not studied Christ enough ; we have not listened to 
his words enough ; and hence our Christian experience 
lacks depth and definiteness and certainty. If this be 
so, no wonder that the testimony which our experience 
gives, is faltering. It will only speak out with dis- 
tinct and firm and decisive tones, when our whole 
hearts are subjected to the influence of the Gospel. 

But it may be, that with some the other supposition 
is the true one. There may be some who have en- 
tered deeply into the spirit of Christ and the Chris- 
tian doctrines, and yet have painful perplexities at 
times. Objections are urged, perhaps, on grounds of 
philosophy or history, which they do not know how 
to answer, and doubts of one sort and another are sug- 
gested, which though repelled disturb their peace, 
while it hardly occurs to them to look within them 
for the ground of an unfaltering confidence. 

If such is the case of any us who have believed, what 
we should do is plain. Instead of listening to vain cav- 
ils, or even to real difficulties, urged upon us, we have 
just to stop and seriously consider what has been 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 175 

wrought in us — what we ourselves have felt. We 
have followed Christ. TVe have gazed upon his 
glory. We have availed ourselves of his bleeding 
sacrijBce and have come through Him to God and 
what has the effect been ? What has this Gospel done 
for us f Ah — now the light breaks on us. We see 
that nothing but God's own truth can have wrought 
so mightily, so savingly in us ; and we plant our feet, 
as it were, anew upon the Eock of Ages, and feel it 
more than ever, solid and secure. Let us see 
to it, that we have a thorough Christian experi- 
ence, and that we use it to the honor of our Master, 
as we ought. 

JSTor can we fail to detect the error involved 
in tlie plea which many urge, that they cannot 
receive the Gospel because they have some specu- 
lative objections, which have not yet been an- 
swered. Men often seem to think that this plea is 
entirely valid ; and yet, if the view which we have 
taken be a just one, it is altogether futile. For we 
have seen, that the easiest, and the surest way to '^^ 
ascertain whether the Gospel be divine, is actually to 
try it, for the restoration and the comfort of our souls. 
A sick man may have doubts about the power of the 
remedy which is prescribed. What, then, shall he 
stop and discuss it at all points ? Then he may die 



176 DISCOURSES ON THE 

before tlie discussion is gone through. ISTo — he must 
take the remedy at once, and try its virtue ; and if 
he feels it easing his keen distress — if he feels the 
genial glow of health returning through its influence — 
then his objections are all answered. It is precisely 
so in relation to the Gospel. Shall a man who is 
ready to die under the burden of his guilt and misery, 
and who sees that the universe of creatures can give 
him no relief, refuse to make trial of Christ and of his 
word till he gets absolute demonstration at all points 
that Christianity is a divine provision ? It ought to 
be enough, that there is reasonable ground of hoj^e 
that Christianity is true, O hesitating child of sin and 
suffering, to decide you to try its efiicacy on you. 
Without it you are sure to sink under the weight of 
your iniquity into eternal death. You have seen, 
yourself, what changes it has wrought in others. You 
have seen the wretched, when brought to receive it 
heartily, made to rejoice with a joy that words could 
not express. You have seen those who have believed 
transformed in their temper and their lives, and 
made examples of purity and goodness. So far the 
experience of others is available, as proof, to you. It 
is weak, as well as infinitely hazardous, to delay a 
reception of the Gospel for the sake of resolving 
doubts, when the truth may be known with certainty 



FORMATION OF KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 177 

bj coming at once and placing your soul under the 
full impression of its power. 

Ah ! you who have stood querying and ling- 
ering when you should have fairly and sincerely 
tried the way of life proposed in Jesus Christ, be 
persuaded to make the great experiment, while time 
and opportunity are granted. The witness of thou- 
sands and thousands who have made it, is given to 
the truth of the blessed Gosjjel. Martyrs, from out 
the fires that have burned their bodies into ashes, 
have testified of its blessed fruits in them ; and 
dying saints, many whom you yourselves have known 
and loved, who have built their hopes on Christ and 
his rich promises, have whispered with their pallid 
lips, the words of a full assurance. They have 
declared, as they went down into the dark waters, 
that there was an end of all their fears ; and their 
last accents have been those of conscious victory and 

joy- 
But what, on the contrary, has been the testimony, 
when testimony has been given, of those who have 
gone from Christ and from his Gospel ? It has been 
the expression of bitter disappointment. They have 
found that all other trusts were vain. Just in the 
time of their greatest need, they have seen, with the 

deepest anguish, their reliances all failing them at 

8^ 



178 DISCOURSES ON THE 

once ; the foundations on which they had rested have 
dissolved beneath their feet ; and their hopes of eter- 
nal life have perished. So shall it be with you, if 
you will follow in their footsteps. Come, then, with 
your sins and your necessities, and let it be to-day 
the language of your hearts — To whom. Lord, shall 
we go, if we turn away from thee ? Thou hast the 
words of eternal Life. We believe, and are sure, 
that thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God ! 



CHRISTIAMTY A RELIGION OF FACTS. 



John iii. 11. Verily^ mrily^ I say unto thee, we speah 
that we do Tcnow, am^d testify that we have seen. 

These were the words of the great Author of Chris- 
tianity. He had just explained to JSTicodemus the ne- 
cessity of the new and spiritual birth in order to an 
admission into his kingdom. That master in Israel, 
not clearly understanding what he meant, or wishing 
to draw him into larger discourse on a topic of such 
interest, queried, as if doubtingly, as to the possibility 
of what he taught. This gave the divine Teacher oc- 
casion to protest, in the most emphatic manner, that 
in what he delivered to the world he spoke not as ut- 
tering mere opinions but as testifying to facts of 
which he had personal and perfect knowledge. It 
was precisely in this particular, that he was so incom- 
parably superior, as an instructor of mankind, not 
(179) 



180 DISCOUESES ON THE 

only to the doctors of the Jewish synagogue, but to 
all the philosophers and moralists of the various Gen- 
tile schools. They discussed, reasoned, and conjec- 
tured. They dealt in subtle speculations, in nice dis- 
tinctions, in ingenious inferences, in learned and 
elaborate research. In the end, however, they ar- 
rived at very few sure conclusions. It was no rare 
thing that they contradicted each other, perplexed 
themselves, and confounded their disciples. Ever 
learning, as they imagined, they were never able to 
come to the certain knowledge of the truth. 

It was widely different with Christ. Never man 
spake like this man — was the extorted confession of 
his enemies. In plain and simple language, and by 
the help of the most familiar illustrations, he set be- 
fore men the great essential facts in regard to their 
moral condition, necessities and duties ; as the faithful 
and true witness, giving testimony to what he knew 
as certainties. Appealing to the mighty works which 
he publicly performed in proof of his divine commis- 
sion, and declaring himself to be the Lord from hea- 
ven, he insisted that he spake what he did know and 
testified what he had seen. There is no alternative, 
therefore, but that we either reject him, in the face 
of all evidence, as an intentional and base impostor, 
or else admit, without the smallest qualification, the 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOTJS OPINIONS. 181 

facts to which he gave such positive and always ear- 
nest witness. 

Christianity then, the religion of Jesus Christ, is 
essentially a religion of facts. It is as an embodiment 
and presentation of facts positive and certain, that it 
is addressed to men, and that faith in it is demanded. 
On this view, as distinctly set forth in the words of 
Christ which have been quoted, I wish to insist in 
this discourse. 

First in order, it may be needful to illustrate some- 
what the meaning of this statement ; and all the more 
because we apprehend that it may strike some persons, 
even of those who are most familiar with the Scrip- 
tures, strangely. A very considerable part of the 
l^ew Testament is occupied with the statement and 
discussion of laws and principles, and with the speci- 
fication and enforcement of particular moral duties ; 
and hence it is doubtless true that many are wont to 
think of the Christian religion as a system of difficult 
and abstruse truths ; exceedingly numerous and com- 
plicated, and many of them, at least, even beyond the 
comprehension of ordinary minds. This impression, 
however, is at once widely at variance with the truth, 
and most pernicious in its influence. It produces 
often a feeling of discouragement in thoughtful minds, 
a despair of ever being able to receive the Gospel in 



182 DISCOUKSES ON THE 

an intelligible manner, and of course an aversion to 
the study of tlie Scriptures. 

It is indeed to be readily admitted that there are 
in the E'ew Testament elaborate, profound and even 
in some degree obscure discussions, together with a 
large amount of purely ethical instruction. But it 
will be seen, if the matter be considered, that this is 
by no means inconsistent with the statement that 
Christianity is, as to its substance, distinctively a reli- 
gion of facts. For the facts themselves, that consti- 
tute the pith and moment of the system, may be few 
and simple and easy of apprehension ; while their re- 
lations to each other, to universal truth and to the 
practical purposes of life, may afford a wide field for 
inquiry and discussion. It may be true, it is true, we 
affirm, that the rich doctrinal and ethical discourses 
which form so large a part of the writings of the apos- 
tles, do find their premises in certain cardinal facts 
which may be very distinctly stated and very clearly 
understood. Take away these facts and the whole 
system falls and comes to nothing. In them therefore, 
the essence of Christianity does lie; and when we 
say that it is essentially a religion of facts, we mean 
to assert that the facts referred to form, so to speak, 
the staple material, the substance of which it is com- 
posed, the ground of its discussions and practical ap- 
peals. Assuming some facts as revealed in nature, 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 183 

and discoverable by reason, or written on the heart, it 
connects with these others before unknown, and many 
of them beyond the reach of the highest human wis- 
dom. These disclosures of facts unknown, revelations 
in the strictest sense, are the grand distinction of the 
Christian Scriptures. It is to these that the Bible, as 
a whole, owes its peculiar and inestimable value. 
Their certainty rests on no human discovery, no logi- 
cal deduction, no insight of reason ; but is established 
by the direct and explicit testimony of God himself, 
the God of iniinite knowledge and absolute veracity. 

Here then, as a second step, we come to the inquiry 
— What are these facts the assertion of which, with 
divine authority, is the distinguishing peculiarity of 
the Christian religion? We ought, to be able to set 
them definitely before us. 

Assuming as manifest to reason, and strongly reas- 
serting, the existence, personality and infinity of God, 
Christianity declares, as facts, the following things. 

It teaches, as a fact, that God exists eternally as 
Father, Word and Spirit ; or that there is a trinity in 
the unity of the Godhead. 

It teaches, as a fact, that God administers a perfect 
and universal government over the worlds of matter 
and of mind ; a government of natural and moral 
law. 



184: DISCOTJESES OK THE 

It teaches, as a fact, that, in the universe of mind, 
benevolent love is the grand harmoniziQg force, the 
legitimate result of which is perfection of character 
and state, or holiaess and happiness, in other words ; 
and that selfishness is the great antagonistic and dis- 
turbing force, the legitimate result of which is 
imperfection of character and state, or sin and 
misery. 

It teaches, as a fact, that the whole human race is 
naturally in a state of moral ruin ; having fallen 
entirely from the state of benevolent love, and into 
the state of reigning selfishness, and so from happi- 
ness to misery as their inevitable ultimate condition, 
unless deliverance come from without themselves. 

It teaches, as a fact, that Jesus of ]^azereth was 
God incarnate, the Word made flesh ; and that in his 
sufferings and death an atonement was made for 
human sin, which has rendered the exercise of mercy 
towards repenting sinners consistent with the sense 
of right in God and man, and with general justice 
and good government. 

It teaches, as a fact, that Christ rose from the dead, 
and ascended into heaven where he now lives and 
reigns as Head of the Christian economy. 

It teaches, as a fact, that the Holy Spirit of God is 
sent to make an effectual application of the atone- 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 185 

ment, by tlie renewing and sanctification of those 
who shall be saved. 

It teaches, as a fact, that the resurrection of Christ 
was a type and pledge of the resurrection of all man- 
kind, and that this sublime event stands immediately 
connected with a general judgment and eternal retri- 
butions of happiness or misery. 

It teaches, finally, as a fact, that the Gospel is 
ultimately to reach the whole world with its benefits, 
and to elevate and bless the entire race on earth in a 
very high degree. 

There are many minor facts which are either 
necessarily involved in these, or more or less remotely 
connected with them. But these appear to be the 
leading cardinal facts to which Christianity gives 
authoritative witness, and which are the foundation 
and the substance of what is peculiar in the system. 
Considering how vast the reach and moment of the 
scheme, they are wonderfully few and simple. They 
are stated with great distinctness, may be clearly 
understood, and readily remembered. They are 
mere facts ^ affirmed in plain statements of what actu- 
ally is. They are not problems submitted to reason 
for solution. They are not dogmas as they are some- 
times a little contemptuously called. There has been, 
no doubt, an abundance of dogmatism in the discus- 



186 DISCOIJKSES ON THE 

sions held as to the significance and the relations of 
these facts ; and many dogmas of human origin, 
miserable and worthless, have sometimes been con- 
nected with them in the multifarious discussions of 
the schools. But we should always carefully dis- 
criminate between the clearly stated facts of divine 
revelation and all the reasonings and philosophies 
about them. The former will remain unchanged 
though the latter be scattered to the winds. 

In nature, we well know, there are certain facts 
which are obvious and not to be disputed ; such as 
relate, for example, to attraction, light, heat, organi- 
ization, animal and vegetable life, and a thousand 
other things. These facts are the essential things in 
the natural world ; the basis of all true knowledge, 
and of all sound philosophy in reference to such 
matters. They lie at the foundation of all reasoning 
and judgment in the practical affairs of life, and are 
the ground of all wise action. They are the realities 
of nature. 

Just so the facts to which we have alluded as 
being authoritatively taught in the Christian system, 
are the realities of the moral and spiritual world ; some 
of them partially discoverable by reason, all of them 
known perfectly by God, and by him explicitly re- 
vealed. We speak that we do know, says Christ, and 
testify that we have seen. By the testimony of the 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 187 

senses we learn the facts of the material universe. Bj 
the testimony of God himself we learn the facts of the 
spiritual and moral universe. The latter are not less 
certain than the former ; nor is the knowledge of 
them less necessary to the real welfare of mankind. 
Those persons who, with an air of superior wisdom, 
decry the Christian doctrines, that is to say, the great 
facts of Christianity, as of very little consequence as 
regards a Christian life, exhibit precisely the same 
stupidity as if they should assert that as regards our 
natural life, the facts and laws of nature, are of little 
or no importance. "Were it not so common an occur 
rence, it would seem incredible that any intelligent 
person could give utterance to so shallow and absurd 
a sentiment. 

It is, in truth, only when Christianity is regarded 
as an authoritative setting forth of the most material 
facts in the moral world, that its admirable adaptation 
to the wants of all mankind can be appreciated fully. 
Let this be carefully considered. JSTo system of 
abstruse doctrines, of subtle and nicely elaborated 
philosophy, or of truths recondite in their nature, or 
resting on proofs remote and difficult of apprehension, 
could ever be applicable to men of all conditions 
throughout the world. Views and opinions which 
one individual, or one people, might be able to under- 



188 DISCOURSES ON THE 

stand and to receive, might be entirely unsuited to 
the genius, the culture, or the capabilities of another. 
There are such wide diversities among mankind, in 
these respects, that to human wisdom, the idea of 
giving a religious system which should be equally 
adapted to the barbarous and the civilized, the igno- 
rant and the learned, the weak in intellect and the 
strong in intellect, would probably have seemed, 
beforehand, entirely impracticable if not absurd. 

But God is wiser than men. It is one of the decis- 
ive marks of its divine origin which the Christian 
religion carries with it, that it is a complete realiza- 
tion of this very idea of availability for all. Wonder- 
ful as it is in the grandeur and interest of its disclo- 
sures, vast as are the regions of thought which it 
opens or suggests, and mighty as its influence is seen 
to be wherever it is heartily received, a few distinctly 
stated facts, as we have seen, make up the sum and 
substance of what is peculiar to the system. But 
simple facts all men can apprehend and feel ; if not 
with the same facility, and to precisely the same 
extent, yet so as to experience their practical effects 
on the character and life. It has been found by 
actual experiment that the Hottentot, the Green- 
lander, the Esquimaux, and the savage dweller in the 
islands of the sea, not less than the most intellectual 
and polished people of the world, accept the religion 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 189 

of the cross, exemplify its power to elevate and bless, 
and living and dying enjoy its blessed consolations. 
Its facts in regard to God and providence, to sin, the 
Saviour, the future life and the retributions of eternity, 
and others allied to these, when taken as they stand in 
the holy Scriptures, aside from human reasonings, in 
their true simplicity and naked force, gain easy access 
to the mind when once it is drawn to give them a 
serious attention. 'No great enlargement of the intel- 
lect, no high degree of learning, nor any peculiarity 
of culture is required for their reception. As the 
whole race, notwithstanding all diversities, have 
certain great wants in common, so it is found that to 
meet and satisfy these wants, the facts of the Christian 
revelation, to which He who spake what he did know 
has testified, have a common applicability. They 
avail for all alike Christianity is, in this view, 
admirably fitted to become the religion of the world. 

Since, then, Christianity, as a divine religion, is, 
fundamentally, a revelation of the great moral and 
spiritual facts to which we have referred — facts by 
which especially it is fitted to reach the whole human 
race — a third inquiry v^ill naturally suggest itself. 
How ought such a religious system to be treated ? 
In what state of mind should we approach it ? How 
give it its best practical effect ? 



190 DISCO UESES ON THE 

On this point we may first observe that its clearl;y 
stated facts are always and distinctly to be recognised 
as such. It is for want of attention to this obvious 
dictate of sound reason, that many who seem to be 
sincere inquirers, are tossed perpetually on the rest- 
less sea of doubt. They confound known facts with 
speculative conjectures and opinions. Instead of 
seizing and holding what is certain they forget that 
any thing is certain. They suffer themselves to be 
drawn away from what is tangible and real into the 
shadowy realm of the unknown, and so are led to 
^aste their time and strength, their thought and feel- 
ing, in raising and discussing questions which end in 
nothing after all. The plain facts which Christianity 
embodies and affirms, are not now to be debated. 
They rest already on the highest possible evidence 
and no longer require to be established. We may 
profitably, we must, to some extent, inquire into the 
relation and the bearings of these facts; but unless 
we are willing to involve ourselves in hopeless diffi- 
culties, we are to accept thera as the well determined 
realities which they actually are. 

Suppose a man, in a spirit of captious scepticism, 
refuses to admit the obvious facts of nature, which are 
every day before his eyes ; and as some misnamed 
philosophers have done, sets himself to doubt the 
testimony of his senses, and as it were, to tear up the 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 191 

very foundations of all knowledge. At what results 
would he be likely to arrive ! You would expect to 
see him every moment more and more entangled and 
bewildered, and v^ould hardly count him worthy to 
be reckoned in the number of sane men. To spend 
one's time in making it a question whether the sun 
shines, or the grass grows, or bodies attract each 
other, or in trying to raise doubts about any other 
■well known facts in nature, you would certainly 
regard as a proof of any thing but a sound condition 
of the intellect. 

Just so it is in regard to the main facts of Christi- 
anity — facts which the Son of God appeared on earth 
to settle finally. ISTot to assume them as settled, in 
all om- thoughts and reasonings, is to fall into the folly 
of doubting certainties, ascertained and known to be 
such. "Whether our race be in a fallen state, whether 
the justice of God condemns us, whether Christ has 
made atonement for our sins, w^hether eternal life or 
death is suspended on our repentance and faith in him, 
whether Christ has risen, and whether we shall rise to 
be acquitted or condemned at the bar of a final judg- 
ment ; are things no more to be debated as if ques- 
tionable now, than whether a stone will fall to the 
earth if it be thrown into the air. That they are 
questioned and debated still by many, is no proof that 
they are not established facts ; it proves simply that 



192 DISCOURSES ON THE 

those who will not accept them as such are so far 
blinded and misled through prejudice, or the want of 
information, that they have no right discernment in 
the matter. Quite recently a*man announced, over 
his own name, in the public papers, that the received 
system of astronomy was altogether false, and that he 
was prepared to show this to the satisfaction of all 
who would give him their attention. What then? 
The public, instead of being led to doubt whether the 
sun were the centre of the solar system, w^ere rather 
led to conclude at once that the man had lost his wits. 
So they who at this day seek to bring into doubt the 
facts which Christianity unambiguously sets forth, do 
most of all bring into doubt their own intellectual so- 
briety and force. Since the Christian revelation was, 
at the outset, proved to be divine, and has stood im- 
pregnable against the assaults of persecuting power, 
of wit and ridicule, of learning, criticism and philoso- 
phy, its clearly stated facts are justly to be taken as 
verities forever settled beyond rational debate; and 
all systems, all theories, all speculations, and all pre- 
tended facts, which are really incompatible with these, 
may be at once rejected. Nor is there any thing of 
dogmatism or bigotry in this. It is simply refusing 
to surrender what we know to the unreasonable de- 
mands of ignorance and perverseness. 

It may be added further, secondly, that as a religion 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPIKIONS. 193 

of facts, Christianity must be regarded as immutable 
in its essence, and must be accepted precisely as it is. 
It has been by no means an uncommon thing to see 
men, not avowing unbelief, commit the folly of under- 
taking to correct and modify the Christian revelation ; 
endeavoring to prevent its saying something which it 
explicitly aJSrms, or to constrain it to say something 
which, in truth, it nowhere teaches. Such persons, 
not rarely delude themselves and others. They work 
out monstrous compounds of truth and error mingled 
in various proportions — a few grains, perhaps, of the 
divine to many grains of the purely human, — and 
fancy themselves improvers of Christianity and wiser 
than its Author. 

But what is the result ? With all their ingenuity 
and pains, they cannot alter the. facts which Christi- 
anity makes known. What earnest and persevering 
efforts have been made through centuries, by those 
who have flattered themselves that they were pro- 
found thinkers and philosophers, to make the Chris- 
tian system different in something from what it really 
is 1 How vast the amount of time and labor expended 
in this manner, and all how utterly in vain! The 
same great facts remain to which the divine teacher 
testified when he spake what he positively knew and 
bare witness to what he had actually seen ; and so 
they will remain forever ! They are like old, gray 

9 



194 DISCOURSES ON THE 

rocky mountains, which stand unharmed through the 
beating storms of ages. The cunning inventions of 
human wisdom, opinions and philosophies in perpetual 
succession, encounter them, as clouds encounter the 
hoary cliffs, only to be themselves dissolved and scat- 
tered to the winds, and to leave them just what they 
were before. You may try, O men of speculation, to 
change, in the natural world, the fact of magnetic at- 
traction or of the gravitating force ; but the body will 
still fall and the needle will still be steady to the pole. 
Even so when you shall have done your utmost to 
change the essential facts of the Christian revelation, 
you will leave them as you find them — the unalterable 
realities of the moral universe of God. It is a noble 
characteristic of our divine religion that as to its sub- 
stance and ground, it is immutable and permanent. 
It must be accepted as it is, or rejected altogether. 
The attempt to modify it, is forbidden by sound rea- 
son and sound piety alike. 

Still further, thirdly, it is plain that in order to give 
Christianity its proper influence and power upon the 
world, its distinctive facts must be continually insis- 
ted on. There are two opposite errors which have at 
times prevailed in relation to this matter. It has 
sometimes been the case that the Christian ministry 
and Church have fallen into a scholastic and specula- 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 195 

tive habit. They have at least seemed to regard the 
facts of revealed religion, not so much in their practical 
applications, in their bearing on the character and wel- 
fare, the hopes and destinies of men ; as in the light 
of interesting objects of thought and study, to be ar- 
ranged and classified and constructed into systems, as 
specimens of birds or minerals are studied, prepared 
and labelled and set in the cases of a cabinet. Treated 
in such a manner, the solemn, stirring and vital facts, 
or doctrines as they are quite as often called, of the 
Christian faith, become indeed mere dogmas^ in the 
offensive meaning of the term — dry, abstract and com- 
paratively inoperative dogmas. They lose their pow- 
er to stimulate and rouse the soul, and do but little 
more than entertain the understanding. From such 
an exhibition of Christianity but little life or motion 
will be likely to result. 

But one extreme is apt to beget another. Reacting 
from this excessively and drily dogmatic form of 
Christian teaching there are some who would have 
little or nothing definitely said about the essential facts 
of revelation. They wish to have the teachers of re- 
ligion leave off insisting on the fact of human guilt, 
the fact of a redemption by the cross, the fact of a 
needed spiritual renovation, and so on to the end ; 
and they would have them give themselves almost 
entirely to the inculcation of what is purely ethical — 



196 DISCOURSES ON THE 

to tlie work of exhorting men to tlie outward duties 
which Christianity imposes. Instead of laboring to 
have the system intelligently comprehended and felt 
in its full energy within the soul, there to become a 
source and fountain of right action of all sorts, they 
think it better to insist almost exclusively on action ; 
and to leave the gaining of right knowledge and the 
kindling of right feeling in the soul — which things 
alone give moral power — to be accomplished as they 
may. 

It is hard, perhaps, to say which of these errors is 
the worse. The one converts what should be quick 
and powerful into something nearly or quite inert and 
useless. The other changes what should be spiritual, 
earnest and profound, into something which is chiefly 
formal and outward, a heartless and superficial sem- 
blance of zeal for what is good, and not the thing it- 
self. Give over insisting on the great facts which 
the JN'ew Testament asserts, and confine yourself to 
the teaching of mere ethics, and in a single genera- 
tioi\ Christianity ceases to be known in its peculiar 
features. Let such a course be universal, and it must 
soon become extinct. It is the constant reiteration of 
the momentous facts of the holy Gospel, the clear and 
forcible exhibition of them in their certainty and 
their vast solemnity and interest, that causes them to 
become inwrought into the minds of those who hear 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 197 

them, and especially of tlie young, who in fresh crowds 
are all the while advancing into life. It is in this way 
that Christian knowledge, as related to character and 
life, is perpetuated and made eflfectual to its end. 

In order, therefore, to the progress of Christianity 
and to the right application of it for the saving of 
men's souls and the curing of the evils that afflict a 
sinful world, its facts must be forcibly presented and 
pressed on the attention of all who can be reached. 
There must be special care to exhibit them in their 
own simplicity, in their direct relation to practical 
duty of all kinds, in a word, in their bearing on the 
actual condition and necessities of men. When so set 
forth and urged, the facts of our religion, or doctrines 
as they are with equal fitness called, exert a mighty 
power upon hearts prepared by the divine spirit to 
receive them. They furnish to each individual soul 
the reasons, grounds and motives of right action — the 
impulses which prompt it to strive, with all earnest- 
ness, to meet the demands of duty, and to do good to 
the extent of its ability. 

It only remains to be added, that since Christianity 
is a religion of facts, of positive realities, the obliga- 
tion of every individual heartily and practically to 
receive it, must be allowed to be imperative and not 
to be escaped. Ko one in his senses, can hesitate to 



198 DISCOURSES ON THE 

acknowledge that he is bound to act in accordance 
with the great facts of the natural world, in the or- 
dering of his natural life ; and that he must expect to 
suffer, and will deserve to suffer, the greatest calam- 
ities if foolishly he should refuse to do so. How 
then can it be doubted, that I, that you, and oth- 
ers, are bound to act in accordance with the great 
facts of the spiritual world in the ordering of our 
spiritual life ; and that to refuse to do it is to involve 
ourselves in miseries beyond endurance. It often 
seems as if those who hear the Gospel and in a gen- 
eral sense, admit its claims, were resting after all, in 
the false idea that Christianity is very much a relig- 
ion of opinions, and that it cannot be very material 
whether they personally adopt these opinions or neg- 
lect them. They feel, apparently, that they are at 
liberty to think and act very much as it may suit them 
in regard to the disclosures of divine revelation, pro- 
vided they do not directly array themselves against 
them. 

E'o — no; — this is a great and dangerous delu- 
sion. God, the soul, guilt, redemption, the res- 
urrection from death and eternal joy or woe — these 
are, as we have seen, facts positively determined by 
Christianity — by the Gospel of Jesus Christ as found 
in the New Testament Suppose you refuse them 
your assent, or even your particular attention. Sujd- 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 199 

pose in your heedlessness you quite forget them. It 
is all the same. You will find them realities at last. 
Suppose you admit, and really believe them, intel- 
lectually, and only disregard them practically, per- 
haps with a serious purpose to regard them soon or 
late. It will still remain that they are facts^facts 
touching your duty and your happiness at every 
point. You may live and die neglecting them and go 
at last, as ruined souls, to a lost eternity ; but they 
will be facts forever ! It will forever be true that 
they had such relation to all the interests of your 
being, that you were bound, by the highest conceiva- 
ble obligations, to heed them in the moulding of your 
characters and the shaping of your ends. 

Remember this, 1 pray you — that in this divine 
religion, which, in the name of God, is pressed on 
your attention you have to do with facts from which 
there is no escape. Admit them, act as they 
demand, build on them, as on an adamantine basis, 
the structure of your character and hopes, and it shall 
be to the exaltation, peace and glory of the immortal 
future that awaits you. Pursue an opposite course, 
and you will surely verify at last, in your own mel- 
ancholy experience, the fearful words of Christ — who- 
soever falleth on this stone shall be broken ; but on 
whomsoever it shall fall it shall grind him to 
jpoioder ! 



MYSTERY NO OBSTACLE TO FAITH. 



1 CoE. ii. 7. Bat we speak the wisdom of God in a 
mystery. 

Each human being at liis birth has every thing to 
learn. "We bring into being with ns the faculties 
which fit us to become intelligent ; a mental consti- 
tution from which perceptions, intellectual processes 
and ideas, in proper time and by the natural course 
of things, result. As w^e are brought in contact with 
external objects, the mind is awakened into conscious- 
ness; its elementary laws of thought reveal them- 
selves ; and thenceforward, it -goes on, more or less 
rapidly, in the acquisition of positive knowledge. 

The child, when the sense of his own ignorance 
and a desire to learn have been awakened in his heart, 
is apt to imagine that those who are older than him- 
self, and whom he has found able to answer his first 
inquiries, know almost every thing. He believes 
that when he too shall become a man, he shall, in 
(200) 



FORMATION OF KELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 201 

like manner, clearly comprehend those things at 
which now he can only wonder. As he advances to 
matnrer years, therefore, and new subjects of interest 
continually present themselves, he goes on asking 
others to explain ; and he is surprised and disap- 
pointed when he finds, in many instances, that no 
sufficient explanation, and no solution of his difficul- 
ties, can be given. He finds it hard to relinquish the 
idea of having every thing made entirely plain to his 
understanding ; and under the infiuenee of this reluc- 
tance, he is inclined to doubt or disbelieve whatever 
is inexplicable — whatever, in other words, offers it- 
self as a mystery to his mind. 

In this vulnerable point, scepticism in reference to 
subjects of a religious nature, is wont to assail the 
mind. It exaggerates the mysteriousness of the facts 
and doctrines of religion — of revealed religion more 
especially — and affects to regard it as something 
strange that these should be attended with difficulties, 
and should some of them seem so much beyond the 
reach of the natural understanding. It would have 
it believed that obscurity — mystery — is something 
peculiar to religion, and not to be found in other 
departments of our knowledge ; and then insists that 
what is so incomprehensible cannot rationally be 
believed. By this specious, but unsound and falla- 

9* 



202 DISCOUKSES ON THE 

cious style of argument, tlie faith of many has, without 
doubt, been overthrown. 

"We say that the argument against revealed religion 
drawn from the mysteries involved in some of its 
truths, is not valid. It is neither true, as it assumes, 
that mystery pertains only, or at least preeminently, 
to matters of religion; nor that nothing that includes 
impenetrable mysteries can be entitled to belief. We 
purpose, on the contrary, now to show that mystery 
pertains to all other things which we believe as truly 
as to the doctrines of divine revelation ; and that if 
we cannot receive anything mysterious as truth, then 
we cannot receive as truth, any thing at all. One 
course of argument and illustration will establish both 
these points. 

That there are unfathomable mysteries involved in 
revealed religion is readily conceded. The apostle 
boldly avows it in the text : we speak — says he — the 
wisdom of God in a mystery. The being of God, the 
foundation of all religion, is itself a mystery. We 
can form no conception of his essence. The mind 
sinks exhausted in the effort to take in the eternity of 
his duration, or the infinity of his power. His self- 
existence is an abyss that swallows up our thoughts. 
When in our efforts to conceive him as he is, we have 
combined our highest notions of wisdom, of power, 
of justice, of goodness, and of the morally beautiful 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 203 

and sublime, we have fallen as far below tbe great 
reality, as does tbe infant when pleased with the 
splendor of the sun, of a just comprehension of the 
mechanism of the universe. The Providence of God, 
which revelation represents as universal, is a mystery. 
That he should sustain the universe and fill it with his 
presence, at every moment bringing myriads of crea- 
tures into being, displaying everywhere the most 
admirable workmanship, controlling all things by his 
will, never reposing for an instant in the midst of his 
infinite affairs, and yet fainting not, neither becoming 
weary — all this it is utterly impossible for us with 
finite powers, to comprehend. The system of redemp- 
tion, through which, according to the gospel, God of- 
fers eternal life to sinful men, dating its origin in the 
deep counsels of eternity, unfolding the divine mercy 
in its immeasurable riches, involving the wonderful 
fact of the incarnation of the Word and the mission 
and inscrutable ministry of the Spirit, is equally a 
mystery acknowledged. So is the truth of the trinity 
in the unity of God. So is spiritual existence, 
and the resurrection of the body to immortal life. 
All these and many other truths which are essential 
parts in the scheme of revealed religion, are confess- 
edly mysterious. But when the plea is urged that 
they are in this respect peculiar, and that it is 
unreasonable and extraordinary that we should be 



204: DISCOURSES ON THE 

required to believe things so mysterious in themselves, 
or their relations, we at once join issue on the point 
and deny that there is anything peculiar in Ijie case, 
or anything contrary to reason in the requirement ; 
and we assert, on the contrary, as already stated, that 
there is in fact mystery in every thing, and that this 
proves, in a multitude of cases, no obstacle at all to 
the most firm belief. 

Let us look at a few facts. Of nothing can we feel 
a greater certainty than of our own being and per- 
sonal identity. 'No imaginable' evidence can add to 
the strength of my conviction that I exist, and that I 
am the same individual being that I was twenty years 
ago. But what am I ? I can no more understand the 
essence of my conscious self, than I can that of God 
the Infinite Spirit. The intellectual activities — 

" These thoughts that wander through Eternity"— 

that flash with a speed that outstrips the lightning 
across the universe, that travel from world to world 
and ascend from the insect to the Deity without effort 
or fatigue, — what know I of their nature ? - Or where 
is he that can resolve my doubts and tell me what 
they are ? These sensibilities that make me capable 
of so many and such various affections by contact 
with things without me, capable of being moved to 
admiration by the view of beauty, to awe at the sight 



FOKMATION OF KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 205 

of the sublime, to love in the contemplation of the 
pure and good ; what can I tell, or what can I learn 
of their hidden constitution? The philosopher here 
is no wiser than the child. That wonderful faculty 
the will, by what means can I draw aside the veil that 
conceals its operations ? It acts unseen within me as 
the helmsman of my destiny, turning me hither and 
thither, and commanding every power by its simple 
act of choice. The material body, in all its members 
and nearly all its functions, obeys its secret energy. 
It is the attribute, finally, which makes me moral and 
responsible. Yet I know as much of the structure of 
the farthest world in space, as I know of its essential 
nature. My own being is a mystery. 

Then, further, as to my personal identity — what is 
it precisely that constitutes me the same individual 
that I was at any moment past? My body is not 
composed of the same matter ; perhaps not one of the 
same particles are in it now which at some former pe- 
riod it contained. Yet it is the same body and not 
another. My mind, too, has been perpetually passing 
through changes of thought, feeling and affection. 
Its opinions, tastes, desires, are widely different from 
what they were in other years. Yet after all, it is 
the same and not another mind. Its thread of con- 
scious identity has not been broken and never will be 
broken. How inscrutable a mysteiy is this ! 



206 DISCOURSES ON THE 

Turn then, if you please, to E'ature in any of her 
various departments. Look, for instance, at the facts 
presented in the animal kingdom. Explain, if you 
can, the nature of that something to which you have 
given the name of instinct. Observe that spider, 
which has spread her gossamer across your window. 
How did she learn to construct that octagon, as per- 
fect as if drawn by the nicest geometrician? Or 
watch the robin that has fixed her nest on the tree 
that shades yom* door. That nest is the first she ever 
built ; yet see how perfect — the most practised of her 
kind has never formed a better. "Where did she gain 
her skill in architecture ? ISTote too with what self- 
denying perseverance she sits upon her eggs ; it is her 
first time of incubation. How came she to know that 
such an act was necessary, and that her long patience 
will be at length rewarded ? 

Consider also animal life itself, and the functions of 
the vital economy. What is it that prevents the de- 
composition of the flesh of animals so long as the vital 
principle is there, while decay commences the mo- 
ment it is gone ? Lay open the mode of the assimi- 
lating process, and tell us how it is that the gross sub- 
stances taken in the form of food, are converted into 
the beautiful carnation of the human cheek, and the 
gorgeous and variegated dies of birds and insects. Show 
what it is that keeps the heart forever throbbing, and 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 207 

the lungs perpetually heaving, without any effort of 
the will. Solve the long doubts of the philosophers, 
and tell us what is the condition of the mind in sleep, 
and of what stuff dreams are made. You encounter 
mystery at every step. 

Or look again at the vegetable world. There is 
the rose blushing crimson by your window. What 
elements have been concerned in its production? 
Light, heat, moisture, and the common earth. But 
by what means have the soft and tender petal, the 
exquisitely grateful odor, and the hues unrivalled in 
their loveliness, been elaborated from such materials ? 
How has the same sap been made to produce the 
hard stalk, the shai'p thorn, the green leaf, and the 
admirable flower ? There too is the lily by its side. 
It springs from the same soil, is warmed by the same 
sun, watered by the same showers, yet instead of 
having the same color it is white as the virgin snow. 
Again, there is the grass and the violet that both spring 
from one common mould, and yet one is a soft and 
lively green and the other an imperial purple. 
Once more, you have a seed. It is only a mite in 
size, but just visible to the unassisted eye, and might 
easily be mistaken for a particle of dust. Yet in it 
lies concealed the germ of a noble plant ; and let it 
be cast into the earth, and it will send forth life and 



208 DISCOUKSES ON THE 

beauty from its own decay and thus will perpetuate 
its kind. How unsearchable are all these mysteries ! 

If now from organized we pass to inorganic matter, 
the same combination of the known with the unknown 
meets us. You have here the laws of chemical affin- 
ity and repulsion. You find that certain substances 
when reduced to a fluid state and then placed in 
given conditions, return to solids by the process of 
crystalization ; and that in doing this one always 
takes the cubic form, another always that of an octa- 
hedron, another always that of a parallelopiped, 
and so on. But of these, and a multitude of other 
plain and unquestionable facts, you cannot by the 
nicest observation detect the cause, or the mode of its 
operation. ^N'ature veils it in deep mystery. 

Lastly, not to prolong our illustration, think of 
those subtle yet efficient agents that produce the 
more general and grand phenomena of nature. Put^>-^ 
an end to the conjectures of mankind, by telling us 
what light, and heat, and electricity, and magnetism 
are. That mighty universal force, to which, by way 
of concealing our ignorance, we give the name of 
gravity ; which brings the pebble to the earth, and 
chain revolving worlds about their centres ; search 
out the secret and instruct us in relation to its nature. 
You cannot answer our inqiuries. These are nature's 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 209 

hidden things. She wraps them in mystery into 
which you pry in vain. 

You see, then, that mystery is written all over the 
universe of God. You cannot turn where it is not. 
You find it in yourself, you perceive it in every crea- 
ture that hath breath. You see it in every blade of 
grass, and every flower, that beautifies the earth ; in 
every gem that comes from the productive mine ; in 
the radiance of the sun, the gleam of the lightning, 
in the needle steady to the pole, in the alternations 
of day and night, the changing of the seasons, and 
the mechanism of the heavens. There is nothing so 
familiar, nothing even so trifling around you, that it 
may not suggest a variety of questions which it is 
beyond your power to answer. 

It is therefore, manifestly true that we do in reality 
believe a multitude of facts on the testimony of our 
senses, and oi^ other evidence, in which the deepest 
mysteries are obviously involved ; thus showing, 
undeniably, that mysteries present no obstacle to the 
belief of facts or truths supported by a reasonable 
amount of proof ; or, which is saying the same thing, 
that the certainty of what we know, is *not in the 
least diminished by the uncertainty which may exist 
in regard to the relations of our knowledge. 



210 DISCOURSES ON THE 

Having thus shown the groundlessness of the alle- 
gation of the sceptic that things involving mystery 
are not to be believed, we will now go further still. 
"We will take the full benefit of the argument, by 
turning the fact that many of the truths of revealed 
religion are confessedly mysterious, to the confirma- 
tion of its divinity. We say, then, that if a system 
of religion were presented, which professed to be 
from God, and yet did claim to have no mysteries, 
this claim itself should prove the system to be false. 
For such a system would be exceptional and anom- 
alous in our experience ; and we should justly reason 
that if earthly things are found to be beyond our 
comprehension, much more ought heavenly things to 
be expected to be so; that if there are mysteries in 
ourselves and in all the animal creation, in every 
blade of grass and every flower, in the pebbles 
beneath our feet, in the clouds above our heads, and 
in the laws that govern matter ; much pore ought we 
to look for them in God, in his vast plan of moral 
government, in his eternal providence, in the spiritual 
relations of the human soul, in the means of its recov- 
ery from sin and the determination of its character 
and destinies for the immortality that lies on the 
other side of death. When, therefore, the truly 
enlarged and discerning mind finds that revealed 
religion, instead of making loud pretensions to sim- 



FOKMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 211 

plicity, and claiming to make the infinite perfectly 
intelligible to the finite, exhibits the grand facts and 
doctrines of which it treats in the sublimity of their 
real light and shade, explaining what we have need 
to know and are now capable of knowing, and leaving 
other things enwrapped in darkness ; it sees, in this, 
at once, the evidence of honesty and truth, and a 
conformity to the familiar system of material nature. 
To such a mind, the mysteries of religion, so far from 
being obstacles, are positive aids to faith. To the 
Omniscient only are there no dark and hidden things. 
A mystery, let it be borne in mind, is not an absurd- 
ity — a something at which reason itself revolts, it is 
simply something not yet understood. Since our 
capacities are limited, and our power of comprehend- 
ing the spiritual is particularly feeble, it is, in the 
nature of the case, impossible, that even by any con- 
ceivable revelations, God should bring down to the 
level of our minds all those truths that lie embosomed 
in the invisible, the infinite and the eternal. The 
whole scheme of revealed religion to him is wisdom, 
though to us it is delivered, of necessity, in a mystery. 
We would not indeed, assert that God has actually 
gone to the utmost limit of the possible, -in giving a 
revelation. There is no reason to suppose that he has 
done this in relation to all subjects, while we may 
well believe that he has with respect to some. There 



212 DISCOURSES ON THE 

may be many other reasons, it is plain, besides that 
of our want of capacity to comprehend him, to render 
it fit that he should withhold from us many kinds and 
degrees of knowledge which might without difficulty 
be imparted. Of such reasons there are some that 
readily suggest themselves. It might, for example, 
instead of relieving, only bewilder and perplex us, to 
have our minds excited to yet higher inquiry by fur- 
ther disclosures as to things that have no immediate 
relation to our duty or our happiness for the present. 
Life is so short, so full of engrossing occupation, we 
are under the necessity of devoting so much of it to 
what is directly practical, that very little time is al- 
lowed us for merely speculative thought. To open 
too many vistas to our minds, too many and too dis- 
tant glimpses out into the great universe of things, 
might only divert our attention from matters of pres- 
sing moment, or make these seem to us to be trivial 
and irksome. Then further, it is no less obvious that 
this living in the midst of mysteries may prove a most 
salutary moral discipline. By contact with the as yet 
unopened secrets of the universe, our pride receives a 
salutary check. We find that with all our aspirations 
and our conscious power of intellect and will, we can- 
not pass beyond a certain boundary which God has 
fixed. We are taught to recognize the unimaginable 
grandeur and glory of that great Being to wdiose all- 



FOEMATION OF RELTGIOFS OPINIONS. 213 

embracing mind and all-discerning vision nothing is 
in any respect obscure. All this is eminently favor- 
able to a right estimate of ourselves and to a just view 
of our position. The lesson of our ignorance and of 
the imperfection of our highest faculties as instruments 
of knowledge, enforced as it is perpetually by the facts 
of our experience, is well adapted to repress conceit 
and to beget a reverential spirit. Both as regards the 
ends of practical life and the dovelopement in our 
souls of sentiments of humility, of veneration and of 
worship, there are great advantages to be derived 
from the present withholding of many parts of divine 
knowledge which might possibly be revealed. In- 
stead of being impeached, therefore, because of mys- 
teries which might have been made clear, the wisdom 
and goodness of God find in these very mysteries an 
impressive illustration. Instead of being an objection 
to a revelation that claims to be from him, that many 
of its lines of truth run off into the infinite unknown, 
we ought to recognize in this fact one of the most dis- 
tinctive marks of its divine original. The absence of 
mystery would demonstrate it to be only a shallow 
cheat. 

Instead, then, of suffering ourselves to be perplexed 
and stumbled because we encounter mysteries in the 
Christian revelation, it is much wiser, as well as more 



214 DISCOURSES ON THE 

becoming, certainly, tliat we cultivate a humble, do- 
cile spirit. How exceedingly limited, at best, is our 
horizon ! What an infant, in a sober view, does the 
wisest man on earth appear, on the scale of universal 
being ! We walk as if by moonlight. We are able 
to see the form and outline of the things immediately 
about us, with tolerable distinctness ; but of the more 
remote, we can perceive only the dim shadows. It 
little befits our state and powers, to be self-confident 
and wise in our own eyes. It is much more suitable 
to both, that we should take the attitude of children ; 
and that, with a profound willingness to be taught, 
we should ask of God, the Fountain of eternal wisdom, 
that he will illuminate our souls and guide us into 
truth. 

We ought likewise to consider, for the enkindling 
of a heartfelt gratitude, that the mysteries of our be- 
ing had been far deeper and darker than they are, 
but for the partial light which God has afforded in 
his Word. We assume, at this stage of our progress, 
that the Christian revelation is divine. By the help 
of this, where the wisest heathen, in all ages, have 
groped their way, we are able to see distinctly ; and 
though we are able to know so little in comparison 
with the grand total of truth as open to the infinite 
mind, yet let us devotedly praise God that he has en- 
abled us to know so much. It is enough to break the 



FOKMATION OF EELIGIOUS OPINrONS. 215 

gloom of these our mortal days of darkness. It is 
enough to enable us to discern and keep the path of 
duty and of life. What though it does not enable us 
to look, with perfect vision, into the unfathomable 
depths of glory in the being and the counsels of the 
Deity, or to solve to our thought the perplexing enig- 
mas of the universe. It ought not only to satisfy us, 
but to fill our souls with thankfulness, that the light 
we have is sufficient to lead us to the knowledge of 
all that is now essential to our welfare. 

For the rest, it may content us that we can confi- 
dently anticipate the future increase of our knowl- 
edge. You are perhaps sometimes impatient now of 
the Limits set to your inquiries. Your restless spirits, 
as it were, beat against the bars that shut them in, 
and long to penetrate beyond them and put an end 
to doubt. [Receive, then, with a meek and penitent 
and trusting heart the blessed gospel of the Son of 
God, and mold by it your temper and yom' life, and 
you shall ere long rise to a higher region of existence. 
There the mysteries that now perplex you will prob- 
ably most of them be solved. The shadows of earth 
will no longer lie upon the fields of truth. I do not 
say that new mysteries will not be found. On the 
contrary, since you are finite and God is infinite, you 
must forever find them. But in the more perfect vis- 
ion of that brighter world, you will be ever learning ; 



216 DISCOUESES ON THE 

and as old mysteries, one by one, are understood and 
new ones are presented, your circle of knowledge will 
be evermore enlarging, and yon will find an inexhanst- 
ible delight in studying into tlie secrets of tlie uni- 
verse. While, therefore, yon are hnmbled at yonr 
ignorance, and grateful for the degree of light you 
have, submit patiently to mysteries, and await in faith 
and hope the disclosures of the coming world. 

« Mortal, who with a trembling, longing heart, 
Watchest in silence the few rays that steal 
In their kind dimness to thy feeble sight ; 
Watch on in silence— till within thy soul, 
Springs the hid fountain of immortal life ! 
Then shall the mighty veil asunder rend 
And o'er the spirit living, strong and pure, 
Shall the full glories of the Godhead llow I" 



THE HIGHEST EVIDENCE MAY NOT 
PRODUCE BELIEF. 



John xii. 37, But though He had done so inany mir- 
acles hefore them^ yet they telieved not 07i hi7n. 

That the public ministry of our blessed Lord was 
altogether extraordinary in its character, even the most 
determined and malignant of his enemies never pre- 
tended to deny. In tone and spirit, in matter and 
manner, in word and work, it was nnlike anything the 
world had ever known. It was because it was so 
unique, so original, so striking, that it arrested atten- 
tion as it did; that it commended itself so powerfully 
to the candid and sincere, who waited for the consol- 
ation of Israel ; and excited such implacable hostility 
in the minds of the proud, the self-righteous, and the 
sensual. 

But while the ministry of Christ had a character so 
marked that it could not fail to produce a marked 
(217) 10 



218 DISCOURSES ON THE 

impression, its chief value, after all, was to de- 
pend on its being unhesitatingly accepted as divine. 
The grand question to be settled by all who might 
take an interest in the matter, was, — Is it a ministry 
which God has instituted, and has distinctly endorsed 
and ratified, as invested with authority from Him ? 
That such was the fact, it was necessary to have 
established in the most conclusive manner. 

Of course, there was need that the claims of Jesus 
to have come down from heaven as the Lord's Christ, 
as God's special ambassador to men; and to have 
received from the Father the authority which, in his 
ministry, he assumed and exercised ; should be sus- 
tained by proofs as extraordinary as the claims them- 
selves. Such proofs, it is alleged, were amply fur- 
nished, especially in the astonishing miracles which 
he wrought in the most public manner, in a great 
variety of circumstances, and throughout the whole 
period of his public life. Yet what was the result ? 
The text announces it : — But though he had done so 
many miracles before them, yet they believed not on 
him. It strikes us as a strange result. The phenom- 
enon is worthy to be studied. By a carefnl examin- 
ation of the case, we shall be led to some interesting 
and highly practical conclusions. 

How is it to be accounted for, that with all tlie 
miracles which he performed, before them, so many 



FOKMATION OF KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 219 

nevertheless refused to believe in Christ ? This ques- 
tion Avill sufficiently indicate the drift of the remarks 
which we propose. 

We say then first that their persistent unbelief did 
not originate in any doubt as to the reality of the 
miracles themselves. Of this we are absolutely sure ; 
because the reality of these mighty works was fully 
admitted by the fiercest of Christ's opposers. That 
he actually did the things which he seemed to do, 
without any ilhision or collusion in the matter, was 
habitually acknowledged ; was never, in fact, so far 
as there is evidence, denied in one solitary instance. 
They were wrought on all sorts of occasions, among 
all sorts of people, in the most open manner possible, 
and with every attending circumstance that could pro- 
duce conviction ; and it was doubtless because they 
were undeniable, and for no other reason, that they 
were undenied. It was without the least hesitation, 
that Christ himself appealed to them as the decisive 
credentials of bis divine commission, which he could 
not have done, had not their reality been universally 
conceded. 

When, for example, John sent to him two of his 
disciples, demanding — art thou he that should come, 
or do we look for another ? — Jesus answered and said 
unto them — Go and show John again those things 
which ye do hear and see. The blind receive their 



220 DISCOTJRSES ON THE 

sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, tlio 
deaf hear and the dead are raised up. The whole 
force of this reply lies in the fact that they themselves 
had witnessed all these things, or most of them at 
least, which Luke tells us was the case, and that no 
doubt was thrown upon them from any quarter. 

The truth obviously is that very many of the mira- 
cles which Jesus did, were established by such a kind 
of proof, and such an amount of proof, that there was 
not tlie smallest chance for cavil. When in the crowded 
street he stopped the fnneral procession, and restored 
the widow's son to life, who of that astonished throng 
would have ventured to deny the deed ? When he 
multiplied the bread, and fed the five thousand with 
five loaves, and on another occasion the four thousand 
with the seven loaves, who of all the multitudes that 
had themselves both w^itnessed the wonder and tasted 
of the food, could have ever questioned that a stupen- 
dous miracle was wrought ? So as to the opening of 
the e3^es of the man born blind, well known, not on\j 
to his parents, but to great numbers wlio had been 
acquainted with him from his birth, or had often seen 
him as he sat begging by the wayside ; it was impos- 
sible to gainsay the fact when he was seen with his 
sight restored. So in other cases; particularly 
in that of Lazarus. That Christ had raised him from 
the dead, there was no possibility of denying ; it was 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 221 

known and acknowledged at Jerusalem, by friends 
and foes alike. 

When, therefore, the Scribes and Pharisees and 
those who acted with them, rejected Jesus of ITazareth 
with all his wondrous works before them, we know 
that it was not because there was any suspicion as to 
the miracles themselves. It was impossible for them 
to do otherwise than own that these miracles were 
real ; and painful as the confession was, they were 
compelled to make it. 

Nor, in the second place, can the nnbelief to which 
the text refers, have originated in any want of adap- 
tation in miracles to produce a conviction of Christ's 
divine commission. 

Although our Lord himself distinctly appealed to 
his miracles as affording unanswerable proof that he 
came from God ; and although the Apostles did the 
same, and the ablest Christian writers of all ages have 
agreed in so regarding them, it has become quite the 
fashion with a certain class of writers in our day to 
deny that miracles, admitting them as really per- 
formed, can establish any truth at all. In support of 
their position these modern sages insist that no miracle, 
however great, can supply the several steps in the 
logical process by which an abstract truth is made 
clear to the understanding ; can give, in other words, 
a complete demonstration of a theorem. But this as- 



222 DISCOURSES ON THE 

sertion is, in reality, notliing to the purpose. The 
question is not a question of abstract trutli at all ; but 
of truth in the concrete — a simple question of fact. — 
A person clahns to possess divine power. Does he 
really possess it ? That is the question. If he per- 
forms a miracle he exercises divine power. Does not 
that prove that he possesses it ? If a work of God is 
manifestly wrought, what other demonstration can be 
asked that the power of God is there ? 

Besides — although it be admitted that a miracle 
cannot convey the logical process by which the 
reason is put in possession of a truth, it does not 
follow that it may not afford a solid basis on which 
the reason may construct such a process for itself; 
and so arrive at even abstract truth, to which without 
the miracle it could not have attained. We 
maintain that the miracles of Christ did both demon- 
strate that the power of God w^as in Him, and furnish 
the ground for many important deductions in relation 
to his person. Let us look at the case particularly 
and see. 

"We have seen that the miracles of Christ were 
admitted on all hands to be real. That they were 
not wrought by merely human power was acknowl- 
edged also ; for this is involved in the very notion of 
a miracle. But two suppositions then were possible. 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 223 

Either tliey were wrought as Christ himself affirmed 
by the power of God residing in him, or else bj the 
power of the devil, as some of his enemies alleged. 
The one or the other of these things, it was clear, 
must be the truth. But the miracles of Christ were 
all of them, or nearly all, manifestly benevolent in 
their character, and many of them were in direct and 
obvious subversion of the dominion and influence of 
Satan ; and the question which Christ asked of those 
who pretended to ascribe his works to Satanic agency 
■ — If Satan cast out Satan, how then shall his kingdom 
stand — exposed effectually the absurdity of the idea, 
that there was any such agency in the case. What 
then was the inevitable conclusion, to every one who 
reasoned soundly ? Jesus of Nazareth comes as the 
messenger of God. In proof of his commission, he 
performs these mighty w^orks. They are undeniably 
beyond all human power. They are palpably opposed 
to the interests and the spirit of the devil. They do 
therefore evince the truth of what he claims. They 
do exhibit the power of God, as residing in Him. 

Such, it is clear, was the proper force and bearing 
of the miracles which were wrought by Jesus Christ. 
Such was the impression that they were well adapted 
to produce. It is but a poor sophistry of our modern 
days that denies their fitness to produce conviction. 
It was not, therefore, because they were not valid 



224 DISCOURSES ON THE 

evidence of his Messiahsliip, that those in whose 
presence they were wrought did not believe in Jesus. 
They were the proper credentials of the divinity of 
his mission. 

We come then, in the third place, to observe that 
the true explanation of the unbelief of those to whom 
the text relates, must be sought in the state of their 
own minds as regards their preparation for a right 
receiving of the evidence, and not in any want of 
force or adaptation in the evidence itself. 

The fact that the effect of evidence depends mater- 
ially on the internal condition of those to whom it is 
presented, we may here assume as granted. The 
clearest light, if the eyes of the understanding be 
darkened by the influence of perverting causes, may 
fall almost in vain. Even where the understand- 
ing is convinced, the desires and biases of a heart 
that is corrupt, and the stubbornness of a will that is 
determined not to yield, may prevent the plainest 
certainties from being received with a cordial faith. 
Such are the well known laws of mental action. 

How was it then with those who with all the mir- 
acles of Christ before them, refused to believe on 
Him ? It is plain, from what we know of the nation 
generally, and from what the history records of these 
persons in particular, that they were in a state 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 225 

exceediDgly unfavorable to a right appreciation of 
the personal character of our Lord, and to a hearty 
reception of his spiritual and holy teachings. They 
were gross and carnal in their vie\YS * and spirit. 
Their morality was an outward show, which was 
worn over the most thorough selfishness. Their 
religion was rotten at the core — a mere semblance of 
piety, inspired only by arrogance and pride. They 
were fully prepossessed with the idea that the Messiah 
promised to tlieir fathers, was to be an entirely differ- 
ent sort of person from what they saw in the Son of 
Joseph and Mary ; and that his advent and career 
were to be in quite another style than those of Jesus. 
Looking for one who should restore the Jewish nation, 
and bring back its ancient glory, they were ill pre- 
pared to see in the humble ISTazarine, the illustrious 
person whose coming and character had been foretold 
in the lofty strains of prophets, and longed for by 
holy patriarchs and kings. Worse than all, when 
they came to listen to the words of Christ, those 
words which probed their hearts to the very bottom ; 
when they perceived that his aims were purely spirit- 
ual in all his teaching — that to save the lost was the 
grand object of his mission — that the abandonment 
of sin, self-sacrifice, and deadness to the world, were 
the conditions of his discipleship, and that the honors 
and distinctions which he offered were to be reached 



226 DISCOTJItSES ON THE "* 

only tlirongh toil and sufferings, and after the scenes 
of this earthly life were past ; when, I say, they 
learned all this from the lips of Christ, their hearts 
were filled, of course, with the most intense repug- 
nance to such a teacher and to such demands. 

Here, therefore, there were powerful moral causes 
to neutralise the force of evidence, and to turn away 
the mind from the exercise of faith. There was all the 
strength of prejudices long cherished, and all the anti- 
pathy of selfish and unholy hearts, which must be over- 
come, before they could receive Christ and his doctrines 
as divine. It was in vain that his purity of character 
compelled their admiration. It was in vain that the 
surpassing simplicity and beauty of his doctrines, as 
well as the more than human authority and power 
with which he spake, appealed to their consciences 
and hearts. It was in vain that he clearly showed 
them, in his expositions of the Scriptures, that 
the Messianic prophecies all pointed to precisely 
such a person as himself. It was in vain, that not 
only in Jerusalem, but throughout the towns and 
villages of Gallilee, he healed the sick, restored 
the blind, gave hearing to the deaf, recalled the dead 
to life, wrought every miracle, in short, for which any 
occasion offered ; and so gave ample demonstration 
that in him dwelt the power of the Most High. Tlie 
dislike of the heart, prevailed over the force of e\i- 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 227 

dence, and perverted the understanding. The obsti- 
nacy of the unyielding will resisted the decisions of 
the conscience. Wicked and highly excited passions 
disturbed the entire action of the mind, and rendered 
it morbid and impulsive. In a word, those who 
rejected Christ, with all his miracles before them, 
were so completely under the sway of their own cor- 
ruptions, in bondage to the power of evil, that in this 
their present moral state there were insurmountable 
impediments to the right reception of him. The proofs 
were ample. To pure and upright minds, they would 
have been perfectly convincing. But on them they 
were lost, in a very great degree. They were able, 
therefore, to struggle successfully against their proper 
force — and to maintain themselves in spite of them, 
in unbelief. Therefore they could not believe, — says 
the Evangelist in the context, — because that Esaias 
said, — He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their 
heart ; that they should not see with their eyes, nor 
imderstand with their heart, and be converted, and I 
should heal them. Left wholly to themselves, no 
force of evidence could lead them to the right con- 
clusions. 

From the examination we have thus given to the 
particular fact stated in the text, we may derive, as 
was observed in the beginning, some general truths in 



228 DISCOUKSES ON THE 

which wc ourselves have a deep and personal 
concern. 

First of all, we are led to the conclusion that no 
amount of light shed on the understanding, will, of 
itself, avail, to produce a genuine faith in Christ. 

If when the Son of God was on the earth, the ver j 
persons who saw him raise up the dead to life bj his 
simple word, could still persist in unbelief, then what 
amount of evidence may not an evil heart resist ? If 
a wrong state of moral feeling could break the force 
of the proof which the most imposing miracles 
afforded, what kind or degree of proof can be con- 
ceived, which it may not render nugatory ? 

The truth is, that Christian faith, the faith that 
rightly relies on Jesus Christ, supposes along with a 
convinced understanding, an acquiescing heart and 
will ; the full consent of the voluntary nature. But 
while the soul is in love with sin, and swayed by sel- 
fishness, and averse to the hol}^, self-denying duties 
which are included in discipleship, no such consent 
can ever come from its hidden depths. Let light be 
poured around it like the blaze of noonday, it will be 
sure to find some subterfuge wherewith to screen 
itself. Of this a thousand actual illustrations may 
easily be found. 

Here, then, is seen how great is the delusion of those 
persons — we fear that there are many of them — who, 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 229 

secretly, or half-unconsciously, perhaps, but really, 
persuade themselves, fliat the reason why they do not 
believe savingly in Christ, is that they need some 
more convincing proof ihai he is indeed the true and 
only Saviom*. They hear the glorious Gospel. They 
are more or less impressed with the character 
and works of Jesus Christ. Unlike the Jews — 
they have no national and traditional prejudices 
which stand in the way of a general acknowledgment 
that Christ is the true Messiah, and that Christianity 
as a system is divine. In short they have an educa- 
tional belief, a vague persuasion of the understanding 
even, resulting from some examination, it may be, of 
the truth and importance of the peculiar Christian 
doctrines. But as to the matter of exercisiog a per- 
sonal faith in Christ, of personally becoming his 
hearty and avowed disciples, — they think they cannot 
do it for want of proofs which should tell with greater 
power for their conviction. Are there not those in 
this assembly whose case is now described ? — who 
have imagined that could they but hear a voice 
immediately from heaven, or could one be sent from 
the dead to testify to them, as Dives wished ; they 
should then repent and believe the Gospel ? 

Such thoughts are all delusive, certainly. Look at 
the persons to whom the text refers. Suppose that 
Dives had actually been sent to them. How could 



230 DISCOURSES ON THE 

he have furnished stronger evidence that he had come 
from the world of spirits, than J%sus placed before them, 
in proof of his divine commission. If unbelief re- 
fused to yield in one case, why should it not have re- 
fused equally in the other ? So in your own case. 
You have Christ's character and teachings and mir- 
acles and all the blessed fruits which Christianity has 
brought forth in the world for eighteen hundred years 
before you, — and yet you do not believe in Christ to 
your salvation. What if Gabriel himself were 
sent to you to-day, with messages all fresh from the 
throne of God ? How could he offer you credentials 
more decisive than those which Jesus brings ? Even 
if he could, would that remove the difficulties that lie 
not in the understanding but in the heart ? With the 
heart, says Paul, man believeth unto righteousness. 
Light — testimony — proofs — relate to the understand- 
ing. They cannot change the heart. So long as the 
heart is evil, the understanding will be but partially 
convinced, most probably ; or if it should be wholly, 
the heart and will would still refuse the consent of 
cordial faith. So long. as your feelings, the moral af- 
fections of your souls, continue as they are, you will 
turn away from Christ, and hold on in unbelief. 

This leads us to notice, secondly, the neces- 
sity which, from the subject, it is plain exists, that to 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 231 

bring men truly to believe in Christ some rectifying 
power should be applied directly to the heart. And 
here tliere is no uncertainty as to what that power 
must be. The renewing of the Holy Ghost must be 
felt within the soul. For this work He has been sent. 
Under his regenerating power, it must be fitted to re- 
ceive a right impression from the truth ; must be set 
free from the bondage of its pride and prejudice and 
self-will ; must be softened into tenderness, brougbt 
into sympathy with what is holy, and so disposed to 
yield itself with full and ready acquiescence to the 
evidence which lies before it, that Jesus is the Saviour 
of the world, and as such worthy of its confidence and 
love. No man can come to me, says Christ, except 
the Father which, bath sent me draw him ; and again, 
Except a man be born of the Spirit, he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God. 

Yes, you, who are waiting for still stronger 
proofs that Christ is your Eedeemer, and that the 
Gospel is divine ; here is your great, your abso- 
lute necessity. This you, most likely, do not truly 
feel ; but such is undoubtedly the fact. If but the 
Holy Ghost once breathe on your now stubborn heart, 
it will thenceforth be soft and yielding. If he take 
the things of Christ and reveal them unto you, you 
will no longer be able to resist the overpowering im- 
pression of his glory. If he renew a right spirit with- 



232 DISCOIIESES ON THE 

in you, your tastes and symj^i^thies will no more be 
obstructions to your faith, but will have become its 
powerful auxiliaries. Oh, for the coming of that 
spirit from above, to do this work within you ! This 
is our daily prayer — the prayer of all who have be- 
lieved — on your behalf. We have no hope from strong- 
er arguments for the truth of our religion ; no hope from 
greater light could it ever be enjoyed. Our hope that 
you will believe in Christ and live, rests wholly on 
the promise of the Spirit to convince the world of sin 
and to regenerate the sinful soul. We will cry — 
so long as the mercy of God shall spare you — Come, 
O Breath — from the four winds of heaven and 
breathe on these slain, that they may live ! 

Of course, we are able to see plainly, in the last 
place, how utterly hopeless, though living in the 
midst of the most precious Christian privileges, are 
those from whom the Holy Spirit is withdrawn. 

That he was at length withdrawn from the unbe- 
lieving Jews is certain. Jesus himself wept over 
them, in view of the distressing fact : O if thou hadst 
known, even thou in this thy day, the things that 
belong to thy peace ; but now they are hidden from 
thine eyes ! That he is now withdrawn from many 
who still enjoy the gospel, there is painful reason to 
believe. The Scriptures clearly intimate this as true ; 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 233 

and grieve not the Spirit, qnencli not tlie Spirit, are 
the warning voices which they raise ; while the moral 
deadness in which so many live and die are affecting 
comments on their teachings. Of course, as light 
alone, however clear, will never bring them to believe 
in Christ ; as the Holy Ghost alone is able to accomp- 
lish this, the moment he finally departs from them, 
the last hope of their eternity goes out in utter dark- 
ness. 

Perhaps while we were just now saying, that there 
was an absolute necessity that the Holy Spirit of God 
should rightly dispose the heart-— your heart — in 
order to the exercise of genuine faith — the question 
was suggested to your thoughts — why then does .He 
not come, and perform the necessary work in me ? 
You even think perhaps that you desire he would, 
and are waiting that he may. Why, then, in reality 
does he not ? "Without attempting to pry into things 
which are not revealed, perhaps we can learn some- 
thing on this point. Why does he not do his peculiar 
work in you ? 

Did you ever earnestly entreat him that he would ? 
Did you ever go to him in your solitary place to tell 
him of all the blindness, the carnality, the perverse- 
ness of your heart, and beg him with self-abasement 
and with tears to change it ? Have you ever seri- 



234 DISCOURSES ON THE 

ouslj souglit to withdraw your heart from w^orldliness 
and folly, and to yield it to the Spirit that he might 
mould it at his will ? Or if you have ever done these 
things, have you done them with a deep concern and 
a determined perseverance ? 

If not, what need have you to raise the question — 
why the Holy Spirit does not come to do his renovat- 
ing work in you ? Why should he ? If you are not 
sufficiently concerned to seek his saving help ; if you 
will neither invite him to your heart, nor open it to 
give him entrance ; are not these good reasons for his 
absence, whatever others there may he ? It is not 
surely to be wondered at, in such a case, that he does 
not renew your soul. Nor will it be, if being long 
neglected and resisted he withdraws from you forever, 
and leaves you in the hopeless state of those who with 
all the mighty miracles of Christ before them, per- 
sisted still in their unbelief. 

Ah — ^it is true, you who, with the clearest light, 
do not believe in Christ, that you tread on per- 
ilous ground. It is a renovated, holy heart you want 
— a heart touched by the Holy Ghost. The provi- 
sions of the Gospel are not without conditions. It is 
to ihe'ni that ask Him, that your heavenly Father is 
more willing to give the Holy Spirit, than parents 
ai^ to give good things unto their children. But you 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 235 

ask not, seek not, knock not, at the door of mercy. 
O take ye heed, lest ye be left to the fatal quiet 
which follows the final withdrawment of the divine 
Spirit from the sonl. Come while he urges you to 
believe in Christ and live ! 



THE DARK THINGS OF LIFE IN THE 
LIGHT OF REVELATION. 



1 Kings xvi. 22. So Tihni died^ and Omri reigned. 

It is a strange world in which we live. About ns, 
on all sides, a thousand things are constantly occur- 
ring, which but for the fact that we have been 
familiar with such events from childhood, would 
startle and astonish us ; and which do, even as it is, 
sometimes occasion many troubled thoughts in sober 
and reflecting minds. 

Our circle of observation, too, is very limited. We 
see but little of the whole field of human life and ac- 
tion, as our own time presents it ; to say nothing of 
the great history of humanity considered as extend- 
ing through all ages. But if, by some supernatural 
aid, we could be gifted with the power to see at once 
all that is actually transpiring in the fortunes of man- 
(236) 



DISCOURSES, ETC. 237 

kind ; or if some swift-winged angel be imagined as 
making a full survey of all ; there would, of course, 
be seen to be vastly more to excite one's wonder, in 
tbis all-embracing view, than falls at present within 
our observation. 'No words could give an adequate 
impression of the scenes which would be witnessed. 
Omri, ascending the throne, may bo regarded as 
representing the extreme of fortune, on the favorable 
side ; since men are wont to count a throne the pin- 
nacle of earthly prosperity and glory. Tibni, on the 
other hand, may be taken as representing the oppo- 
site, or unfavorable extreme ; since death is reckoned, 
by common consent, the greatest of all the ills which 
a human being is liable to suffer. Between these two 
extremes — that of rising to the highest summit of 
worldly splendor and delight, and that of sinking to 
the dreariness of death and of the grave — an infinite 
number and variety of incidents are momentarily 
occurring to the millions of mankind. If all the 
passing expressions of human thought and feeling to 
which these incidents are giving rise, could be con- 
veyed together to one ear, who can conceive the 
confusion and discords of the mighty chorus so pro- 
duced ! Words of tenderness and love, mingling 
with those of malignity and hate ; exclamations of 
extatic pleasure, blending with groans of anguish and 
despair ; voices of wisdom, delivering itself in high 



238 DISCOURSES ON THE 

discourse, and of follj, sensuality and sin, giving 
utterances of shame and guilt ; sounds of revelry and 
dancing, of pipe and tabret and song, of brilliant talk 
and of pealing laughter, along with the shrieks of the 
insane, the wail of thousands stretched on the gory 
battlefields of nations, the low murmurs of death-beds, 
and the sobs of broken-hearted weepers gathered 
round them ; — all these and more, in one commingled 
volume, would strike the stunned and bewildered 
sense. They all are actually heard together every 
moment, by the ear of the Omnipresent God. 

Or if it can be conceived that all the countless 
phases of human fortune which belong to any given 
day or hour, should be at once presented to the eye 
of one observer, no pen of man or angel can portray 
the mingled lights and shades of the astounding pic- 
ture. Whoever chooses, may try his own imagination 
in the effort to realise it to himself. But we will not 
attempt, even to sketch a faint and general outline, 
of what is really beyond all human power, not merely 
of description, but even of thought itself. 

It is certainly no wonder, then, that life is so often 
pronounced a mystery. To the view of natural 
reason unassisted, it is a mystery, dark, perplexing, 
and insoluble. Yes — without the light which revela- 
tion throws upon it, the more one knows of life, the 
wider his experience of its vicissitudes, the more pro- 



FOKMATION OF KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 239 

foundlj mysterious it is. We ask in vain of reason, 
whence all these painful contrasts, this confusion, this 
singular medley of good and evil? But with the 
Bible in om- hands, we do obtain at least a partial 
satisfaction. If we cannot fully solve the problem of 
human life as the world actually presents it every- 
where, we may assure ourselves beyond all doubt 
that we have found the clue to the true solution. 
We may find some lifting of the shadows which rest 
on the condition of humanity ; we may discover, even 
in life's strangest spectacles, some lessons of instruc- 
tion well worthy of our serious attention. This, then, 
is what we now propose : — to lead the way in some 
reflections, on the mutability of human fortunes^ as 
contemplated in the light of our divine religion ; in 
doing which, of course, we assume as granted, the 
being, perfection, and universal government of God, 
and the reality of a positive revelation. 

The first fact which presents itself, when we con- 
sider the singular diversities of human fortune from 
the position now defined, is this ; that human life, as 
it actually appears, is plainly not in harmony wdth 
the government and will of God. Mankind are not 
in other words, what God, in their creation, fitted 
them to be, and what in his providence he has given 
them ample opportunity to become. Gifted with 



240 DISCOURSES ON THE 

freedom ; adapted to virtuous action and enjoyment ; 
surrounded with means of physical, intellectual, and 
moral culture, instructed as to their relations to God, 
and their obligations to obey him ; the race by the 
abuse of their high endowments, opportunities and 
knowledge, have come into bondage to appetite and 
sense, and placed themselves in a state of alienation 
from God, and antagonism to his authority and law. 
With the views of the divine character and govern- 
ment which the Bible furnishes before us, the moral 
apostacy and ruin of mankind, the debasement and 
degeneracy of their condition, the two great facts, in 
a word, that they are a shifal race, and that as such 
they deserve to sufier evil, are clear and undeniable. 
Man has himself a responsibility in relation to his 
own welfare ; a power, within certain limits, to deter- 
mine his own fortunes ; and the Scriptures say of the 
race, that they have all gone out of the way ; — have 
together become unprofitable ; so that there is none 
that doeth good, no — not one. Some more, and some 
less entirely, they have yielded themselves to evil ; 
but all, as alike estranged from God, are justly liable 
to bear the penalties of sin. 

Now when we look with pain at the vanity of 
human life ; at the instability of its joys, the multi- 
plicity of its sorrows, and the affecting vicissitudes 
which it presents ; we are never to forget, that this 



FOEMATION OF EEJ-JGIOUS OPINIONS. 241 

condition of things is, to a very great extent, the 
result of the folly and madness of mortal men them- 
selves. If we examine the structure of our own 
being, or the constitution and course of nature, we 
shall not find, in either, any thing to make it necessary 
that life should be the empty affair it too generally is. 
Thou hast made him but little lower than the angels 
— said the Psalmist, when he considered the noble 
faculties of man. So when he surveyed the 
order and beauty and benevolent adjustments of the 
natm-al world he broke out in the language of pro- 
found admiration — O Lord how manifold are thy 
works ! In wisdom hast thou made them all. The 
earth is full of thy riches. Man is constitutionally 
capable of a far higher and better life than that which 
now he leads ; within his reach are richer and more 
enduring enjoyments than those which now he ordi- 
narily attains. Did he but live in harmony with the 
will of the Creator, there would still indeed be 
varieties of fortune, but only varieties of good and 
happy fortune ; and not the painful contrasts, the 
mixture of good and evil, which we at present every- 
where observe. 

Here, then, in this fundamental fact of human sin- 
fulness, we have certainly some light on the dark 
problem which the checkered and ever shifting 
aspect of mortal life presents. The oppressive feel- 



242 DJSCOUESES ON THE 

ing which naturally arises when we regard our race 
as doomed to live amidst perpetual contingencies 
and change — a feeling that prompts the query in 
our minds whether or not they are justly dealt with 
— is most materially relieved, when we are brought 
to estimate their characters and merits, by the test 
of a perfect moral law. If we were conscious that 
we ourselves were innocent, and believed that the 
same was true of mankind at large, our moral sense 
would doubtless pronounce our earthly lot imright- 
eously severe. Our sense of justice would rise up 
against the providential government of God. But 
once let' us admit that we are guilty in the sight of 
God — unworthy of unmingled favor at his hand — 
and conscience takes at once the other side. It tells 
us that our measure of good is, after all, far greater 
than we deserve. There is no more room for com- 
plaining thoughts. We cannot help perceiving that 
the painful mutability of human happiness on earth, 
is quite consistent with the infinite benevolence of 
God. "We may observe one rising and another fall- 
ing every hour ; we may pass ourselves through all 
varieties of fortune ; and yet find no good ground on 
which to impeach the wisdom or the justice of the 
Supreme Ruler of the world. A sinful world may 
well be a world of inconstant fortunes, of interrupted 
and precarious happiness. 



FORMATION OF KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 24:3 

A second fact which throws light on the problem 
presented by the inconstancy of human fortunes, is 
that the present life is but the prelude or initiatory 
stage of an existence without end. 

"With the Scriptures in our hands, the doctrine of 
immortality is settled. That the chief scene of our 
existence lies beyond that strange event which we call 
death, is now, as certain as any fact of natural science. 
Yet it is far more difficult to give it practical reality 
to our minds. We are in bondage to mere sense; 
and it is hard for us to rid ourselves of its illusions. It 
is difficult to rise above the habit into which we 
naturally incline to fall, of judging of this life as though 
it were to be considered by itself ; as though death 
were a real, and not simply an apparent termination 
of our being — a transition only from one stage to an- 
other. 

Now it will easily be seen that it must make a 
mighty difference, in our views of the events of the 
present life, whether we regard it as a whole in itself^ 
or only as a 'preliminary jpart^ standing related to a . 
far more grand and interesting sequel afterwards to 
come. No wonder that the lot of mortals appears 
mysterious and gloomy, considered as a complete ex- 
istence. A few years swiftly fleeting by ; childhood, 
youth, manhood, age, succeeding each other like the 
clianges of a dream ; and all exhibiting every imagin- 



244: DISCOURSES ON THE 

able diversity of fortune — here smiles and there tears ; 
now successes and now reverses ; this moment, hope, 
the next despair ; a throne to-day, a grave to-morrow. 
What is there in such an existence to satisfy ? What 
is there worth the having ? Listen to the language 
of one who denying revelation, could take no other 
view of life but this. " In man," says Voltaire, " there 
is more wretchedness than in all the other animals 
put together. He loves life, yet he knows that he 
must die. K he enjoys a transient good, he suffers 
various evils, and is at last devoured by worms. This 
knowledge — of his end — is his fatal prerogative ; oth- 
er animals have it not. He spends the transient mo- 
ments of existence, in diffusing the miseries which he 
suffers ; in cutting the throats of his fellow-creatures 
for pay ; in cheating and being cheated ; in robbing 
and being robbed ; in serving that he might com- 
mand ; and in repenting of all he does. The bulk of 
mankind are nothing more than a crowd of wretches, 
equally criminal and unfortunate ; and the globe con- 
tains rather carcasses than men. I tremble at this 
dreadful picture to find that it contains a complaint 
against Providence itself; and I wish I had never 
been born!" Ah — wretched man ! Such are the 
miseries of unbelief. Such are the views of life, which 
are likely to be taken by those who see in it no rela- 
tion to an immortal life beyond. 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 245 

But this dismal picture changes its aspect at 
once, when by the aid of revelation we put the pres- 
ent in its true relation to the future. With this illu- 
mination falling around us from above, the events of 
these mortal years acquire a new significance. Now 
we perceive that this our brief career on earth, is not 
our life — but only a few moments^ as it were, intro- 
ductory to that life. 

" listen man I 
A voice within us speaks the startling words, 
Man— thou shalt nerer die ! Celestial voices 
Hymn it around our souls : according harps, 
By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars 
Of momiug sang together, sound forth still 
The song of our great immortality. 
O listen, ye our spirits ; drink it in 
From all the air 1 'tis in the gentle moonlight ; 
'Tis floating in day's setting glories ; Night 
Wrapped in her sable robe, with silent step 
Comes to our bed and breathes it in our ears." 

Thus assured, and constantly reminded of the vast- 
ness of our being, it seems less singular, most certain- 
ly, that this first stage of it should necessarily involve 
some temporary discomforts and privations, to say 
nothing here of the mischiefs wrought by sin. It may 
obviously be true that there are good reasons why, 
for this transient preparatory period, enjoyment — 
happiness — should not be the chief thing to be se- 
cured. When a young man is placed by his parents 
in the condition of an apprentice, the main object is 



246 DISCOURSES ON THE 

not to make him hapj)y during the limited term of 
years for which he serves. On the contrary, it is dis- 
tinctly understood that, for the. sake of the future 
years of Ife^ he is, for the present, to submit to many 
sacrifices ; to bear patiently not a few self-denials and 
privations ; and even possibly some actual hardships. 
Why, then, should it be wondered at, if in this brief 
apprenticeship of ours on earth, this first short scene 
of an interminable existence, it should not seem to be 
the design of Providence to make us completely hapj>y / 
if, on the contrary, it should subject us to many trials 
and discomforts. Why should it not be rationally be- 
lieved, that so many, at least, of the adversities which 
mark our lives as are fairly to be attributed to the 
providence of God, are fitted to subserve some ends, 
in reference to the future, far more important than 
that of giving us a present pleasure? And if this be 
admitted, then from this point of view, there are 
some cheering rays to gild the troubled waters of life's 
ever-restless sea. The terrible picture drawn by the 
pen of unbelief, which we have quoted, is seen to be 
essentially a false one ; and the fortunes of humanity, 
inconstant and in many aspects, painful as they are, 
seem far less mysterious and gloomy than before. 

We come then to a third fact, viz : that consid- 
ering life as a school of discipline with reference to 



FORMATION OF KELIGIOrS OPINIONS. 247 

character, its perpetual vicissitudes materially help to 
adapt it to its end. 

We have just had occasion to observe, that during 
a short initiatory period of our being, it may well be 
that happiness should be regarded, as, for the time, 
only a secondary thing ; and we have now further 
to add, what in the light of the Word of God we are 
very sure is true, that the whole economy of things 
pertaining to our condition in this world, is arranged 
primarily with a view to the formation of right char- 
acter. In this the divine wisdom and goodness are 
alike apparent. For in right character, and in this 
alone, can the foundations of solid and enduring hap- 
piness be laid. 

In order to right character, there must be dis- 
cipline. It is difficult for us to conceive that even a 
race of beings commencing their existence in a state 
of innocence, should develop virtuous and holy char- 
acter, in maturity and strength without the discipline 
of trials. Certainly to a sinful race like ours, it is 
plain that even a severe regimen for a season, may be 
if not absolutely indispensable, at least eminently fit- 
ted to prove useful, as a means of such development. 

Painful, therefore, as it may be to contemplate the 
vanity of mortal life as seen in the instability of 
human fortunes, and the diversities of human condi- 
tion, it cannot be denied, that this very state of things 



248 DISC0UESE9 ON THE 

exhibits a wise and good arrangement, for the attain- 
ment of a most important end. 

How is it, for example, that mankind are most 
effectually awakened from the dreams of a mere sen- 
sual and selfish life, and brought to some serious 
reflection on themselves and on their duties ? Is it 
not by the discovery that the visions of pleasure 
which have looked to them so enchanting and so real, 
are all vanishing around them, as the golden hues of 
sunset fade while yet they are admired ? How is it 
that men become most thoroughly convinced that the 
riches, the renown, the distinctions, the power, and 
all the manifold forms of worldly good, are by no 
means the highest and best objects of desire ? Is it 
not by the experience, or the observation, of the dis- 
appointments which attend the pursuit, and the 
dissatisfaction and uncertainty connected with the 
full possession of them? What seems so likely to 
lead men to feel their dependence upon God ; and to 
resort to him as willing to become their Father, 
Friend, and portion, as the want of sympathy they 
feel — and the need of something stable to confide in 
— when all around them is like the shifting sands, 
and nothing gives them rest ? What nurses all the 
kindly virtues, like contact with the suffering, or 
being ourselves the sufferers? How but in the 
struggles which life-long must be waged with capri- 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 249 

cious fortune, to wrest from her the successes to he 
gained, or to surmount the adversities to he endured, 
are all the manly energies of 'virtuous character and 
holy principle to be called forth into strength ? 

Yes, if we seriously consider, we shall see that by 
the instability of human fortunes which, on the first 
impression, seems to cover life with gloom, there is 
supplied a necessary and most salutary discipline. 
By this it is, that life is fitted to become to every one 
a noble school in which to shape the character and to 
secure the highest and best training of the soul. 
Ease, quiet, uninterrupted pleasures, would be nearly 
or quite certain, if constantly enjoyed through a 
course of years, to beget weakness of purpose, the 
love of self-indulgence, and a sensual and slothful 
spirit. It'is in the stern conflicts of life which grow 
out of its mutations ; in the wrestlings with adversity, 
which rouse all the faculties to action, and gird up 
the whole man to the utmost energy of effort ; that 
patience, courage, confidence in God, and constancy 
to the sense of duty, with other kindred virtues, are 
best originated and matured. 

It remains, in the fourth place, to notice one fact 
more. It is that over all the fluctuations and diver- 
sities of human fortune, God exercises an unceasing 
and intelligent superintendence, directed to the end 
of working out the good of those who entrust their 
11* 



250 DISCOURSES ON THE 

happiness to him. Of this deeply interesting fact the 
word of revelation makes us sure. 

When we look at the spectacle of life — at its vast 
gradation of conditions, and its never ceasing changes 
— we are half inclined to feel that it is a world of 
chance in which we live. It almost seems as if we 
ourselves, and others, were left the sport of accident, 
like bubbles on a stormy sea, driven hither and 
thither by the ever varying tempest. To think this 
were a great mistake. Under such conditions it were 
indeed a wretched thing to live. 

Instead of this, we know that in all the countless 
mutations of human things, there is not one, which 
God does not himself directly order, or for wise pur- 
poses permit. We know that God, having, by the 
provision of abundant mercy through Jesus Christ, 
his Son, invited men to come in their conscious guilt 
and weakness and put their trust in Him ; has also 
pledged himself to make all things work together for 
good to them that do so. We know that Jesus, the 
Kedeemer and sufficient Saviour of the world, has 
bound hiMself, as the faithful shepherd, to go before 
his own, and to keep them unto life eternal. We 
hear him promise that in the midst of outward tribu- 
lations, in Him they should have peace ; and that He 
will not leave them comfortless, but will come unto 
them. 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 251 

This then we know with certainty ; that whatever 
may be, to human view, the fickleness of fortune ; 
however many and great the vicissitudes which every 
day may bring ; those who shall come at the call of 
mercy and make the eternal God their refuge, shall 
never suffer one reverse to their real detriment ; shall 
never see one hope lie shattered to their harm ; shall 
never have one tear too many for their good wi'ung 
from them ; shall never feel one pang that shall not 
minister to their intenser joy at last. God, who 
is able to bring good out of evil, will so direct all 
changes of their lot, that even from the tossings of 
the fitful sea of life, there shall eventually come to 
them more perfect and serene repose. 

Here indeed a flood of light breaks in upon 
the shaded scene of life. In all the shifting acts of 
the ever changing drama, the agency of God is 
present directing all things to the end of blessing 
those who are willing to be blest. There is no real 
blindness of fortune, as men have fabled, after all. 
There is no fortune but the Providen£e of God. It 
is God that setteth up. It is God that casteth 
down. It is He that hath pronounced those blessed 
always and everywhere, who heartily commit the 
care of their happiness to him. 



252 DISCOURSES ON THE 

"We are not, then, you perceive, condemned, to 
brood in hopeless melancholy over the vanity and 
transitoriness of the pursuits and hopes of this mortal 
life. We are not like the hapless denier of revealed 
religion, to see in the condition of mankind only 
unmitigated evil, and in view of it to cast reproach 
on the great Ruler of the world. If the human race 
is sinful, they involve themselves in suffering and 
deserve it. If life is a short preparatory season with 
reference to an endless being, it may naturally 
involve the necessity of present crosses ; if it is meant 
to be a school of discipline, it is clearly well adapted 
to its purpose. If God presides over all the vicissi- 
tudes of fortune, to work out good for all who confide 
in him, those who accept his guardianship have 
nothing at all to fear. In all events, from the mount- 
ing to a throne, to the putting on of grave clothes, 
their interests shall alike be safe. When, therefore, 
we observe or reflect upon the changes, that in the 
lot of man so rapidly succeed each other, and at all 
the diversities of condition that every where appear, 
we are to feel that we have at least a partial illumin- 
ation of the mystery of life ; we are to look on it with 
unfaltering confidence in the benevolence of God ; 
and especially we are to study anxiously the respon- 
sibilities which it imposes upon us, in cheerful hope 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 253 

and faithful effort, to rise to a state of stable and 
perfected happiness, at a future period of our being. 

Let us then fix it in our minds, for this is the great 
practical lesson of our subject, that not to understand 
the true nature and design of life, as shown us in the 
Scriptures, is the greatest of calamities. Since the 
chief value of the present state of being depends on 
its being a place in which the punishment of sin is 
for a while delayed ; a place of preparation and discip- 
line for the eternal future ; a place in which the love and 
care of God is pledged to work out good to them that 
love him ; if we thoughtlessly neglect to notice this 
and act accordingly, we endure the trials and miss all 
the useful ends of living here. Ah — how many do 
this, in their folly ! It is the height of folly, to mis- 
take this fleeting, shadowy, unsatisfying scene of 
things, for the scene of our full existence 1 When 
we regard it in this light, when we try to rear the 
structure of our welfare on these false, sliding quick- 
sands, we doom ourselves to disappointments without 
solace, to painful labors without any adequate reward. 
O, rather let us thankfully accept the light that infi- 
nite love has made to stream from heaven on our 
path. I am the light of the world — saith the blessed 
Son of God. Yes, Re hath brought life and immor- 
tality to ftght ! He hath given us exceeding great 



254 DISCOURSES, etc. 

and precious promises. He is the rock of ages, on 
wliicli where all else is unstable, we may build our 
hopes securely. He hath engaged to wipe all the 
tears of those who accept and follow him, far — far 
away from these transitory scenes, where he will 
make them speedily forget the sufferings here en- 
dured, in the solid, changeless, pure delights of hea- 
ven ! In Christ alone, and in his Gospel, is the t^me 
solution for us, of life's great mystery. If we fail to 
avail ourselves of this, we may reign, we may die, we 
may pass through all the vicissitudes that lie between 
— but " vanity of vanities " will be the record of our 
experience ; and we shall end our sad career in a 
darkness, to which there shall never, never be a dawn ! 
From this may Eternal Love preserve us ! 



THE GOSPEL THE SOLE HOPE OF THE 
WORLD. 



Maek xvi. 15. — And he saith unto tJiem^ go ye into 
all the world and preach the Gospel to every m^eor 
ture. 

Accepting the Christian revelation, we accept of 
course, the grand fact which it announces — that Christ 
came to save the world. It needed saving then. The 
whole significance and value of his mission must 
stand on the previous fact that mankind were in a 
state of moral ruin ; a state as to any power of self- 
recovery absolutely hopeless. ]^ot by any means 
that the race had lost the God-like constitutional en- 
dowments which they originally received — the intel- 
lect, the conscience, the yearniog of a spiritual na- 
ture, and that freedom of will which lays the founda- 
tion for a just accountability. N'ot that every sem- 
blance of good, every kind and amiable and praise- 
worthy 'trait of character had disappeared. The truth, 
(255). 



256 DISCOURSES ON THE 

precisely stated, was, that the race had fallen from a 
state of innocence under law, were individually con- 
demned to die, and were bo subjected to the power of 
evil propensity and appetite, that the tendency to a 
deeper and deeper degradation was universal and de- 
cisive. To deny that such was the actual condition 
of mankind, is to deny that such a mission as that of 
the divine Founder of Christianity was necessary ; yet 
more, it is in effect to affirm that it was an uncalled 
for and mistaken pity that moved the Eternal Father 
when he so loved the world as to give his only begot- 
ten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not 
perish. 

As with right views of the character of Jesus Christ 
it is not to be doubted that he rightly understood the 
necessities of those for whose sake he became incar- 
nate, so neither can we doubt that in his work for 
their deliverance he did precisely what the case de- 
manded. Wq conclude also, with certainty, that 
when, on leaving the world, he gave it in charge to 
his disciples to prosecute' to its full accomplishment 
the work of the world's recovery to spiritual life and 
soundness, the means which he directed them to use 
were, in like manner, those which would be found 
most effectual to the end. 

What then did the divine Redeemer prescribe as 
the effectual remedy for the sad condition of mankind ? 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 257 

He simply commanded his Apostles to preach the 
Gospel ; connecting with this, as we learn by a com- 
parison of texts, the two Christian Sacraments, by the 
observance of which his followers might be recog- 
nized and his church have an organic and visible ex- 
istence. A wonderful success attended their faithful 
obedience to his word. That the world is no purer 
and no happier at this distance of time, is to be as- 
cribed to the fact that their successors in the Chris- 
tian ministry have not steadily and faithfully followed 
in their steps. The full experiment of the prescrip- 
tion has therefore never yet been made. It is to be 
made, however. The Christian Church is charged to 
make it, and now deliberately accepts the work ; 
and I design, in the present discourse, to insist on the 
thought which the text, taken in its relations, fairly 
sets before us — that the administration of the Gospel 
and its ordinances, is the sole hope of the world. 

You will at once perceive that the first step towards 
a just illustration of this topic must be to state explic- 
itly, what, in our apprehension of the matter, the es- 
sential Gospel is. We say the essential Gospel ; for 
we suppose that the Christian scriptures set forth 
many truths of great interest in themselves, which 
yet are not so essentially a part of Christianity, as a 
ministration of life, that without them it loses its vital 
power. That is the essential Gospel, on which, di- 



258 DISCOUESES ON THE 

rectlj and specially, the saving energy of Christianity 
depends. It is the more necessary to speak on this 
point with distinctness because that in the entire free- 
dom of opinion and of speech which is one of our na- 
tional birth-rights, it has sometimes happened of late 
that the deism of Bolingbroke and Hume, and even a 
close approximation to downright atheism, have been 
promulgated from the pulpit and misnamed Christi- 
anity. But hemlock is still hemlock, though you 
should choose to call it balm ; and if we receive under 
the name of God's appointed means of life that which 
in fact is noxious, we are sure to find, at length, that 
words cannot change the reality of things. 

We say then, distinctly, that the Gospel which has 
been divinely prescribed as the remedy for the guilt 
and misery of our race, is the offer of forgiveness, 
spiritual renovation and permanent favor with God, 
on the basis of a redemption effected by the incarna- 
tion, sufferings and death of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and through the mission and agency of the Holy 
Ghost, the Comforter. God can and will forgive the 
penitent. God can and will renew and sanctify. God 
can and will adopt into his family and confer all the 
privileges of sonship. These are the primary truths 
of the essential Gospel. These the glad tidings ad- 
dressed to the human race as defiled, enslaved and 
disinherited by sin. Tell these things to the dying, 



' FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 259 

and yon let in the light of hope on their dark and de- 
spairing sonls. Give these elementary truths, and 
from them the whole system of doctrine and duty 
which the New Testament expounds may be devel- 
oped in its completeness and proportion. Withhold 
these and you withhold the real Gospel, profess to 
teach it as you may. Though your speech be as the 
melody of waters ; though it sparkle with the preg- 
nancy of wit, the elegance of learning and the quaint- 
ness of conceit ; though it arrogate to itself pre-emi- 
nent independence, originality and power of argu- 
ment, and profess, ever so confidently, the ability to 
exalt mankind ; it will, after all, have neither the es- 
sence nor the energy of genuine Christianity. It may 
divert men for a time, but cannot in the least avail to 
heal their inward maladies ; and their hearts un- 
reached, uncured, will secretly bleed on. 

You will notice, also, that the power of the gospel, 
according to the view of its radical truths just given, 
is an internal and spiritual power. It is not a minis- 
try of forms addressed to the outward sense ; but of 
purifying and restoring influences — of vital energy 
api)lied to the disordered and morally debased and 
enfeebled soul. In this respect, it differs widely from 
Judaism, and from the false systems which human 
wisdom, or folly, has contrived ; and is immeasurably 
higher and nobler than either the former or the lat- 



260 DISCOTJESES ON THE 

ter. To attempt to connect with the admirable sim- 
plicity of Christian truth, imposing outward pomps 
and ceremonies, is to forget the very genius of Chris- 
tianity. It is just to descend from the sublime eleva- 
tion on which our Lord has placed us by that memor- 
able declaration — God is a spirit, and they that 
worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth 
— to the sensuous and every way inferior externalism 
of the legal dispensation. Judaism prescribed its 
goi'geous robes, its rich adornings, and its grand pro- 
cessions and pageantries in the worship of Jehovah. 
Christianity says simply — Let all things be done 
decently and in order. Judaism exacted costly offer- 
ings ; Christianity demands a contrite heart. Juda- 
ism pointed the conscience-stricken sinner to a mater- 
ial temple, a smoking altar and a sprinkling priest ; 
Christianity bids him — Behold the Lamb of God ! 
Judaism made great account of a natural descent from 
Abraham ; Christianity insists on being born of the 
spirit of God. Judaism was exclusive, regarding 
those within its own circle as especially admitted to 
God's favor ; Christianity, in the largeness of its char- 
ity, declares that God is no respecter of persons, but 
that, everywhere, he that feareth him and worketh 
righteousness is accepted of him. Judaism accepted 
as evidence of superior piety, a lively zeal for out- 
ward observances, such as washings, fasts, and feasts ; 



FORMATION OF BELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 261 

Christianity iDstructs that genuine piety consists in no 
such things as these, but in righteousness and peace, 
and joy in the Holy Ghost. 

Such is the gospel as a saving power. It is a 
leaven that works from within outwardly. Its words 
are spirit and life. It is strong in its divine simplicity. 
It has no affinity for imposing rites and ceremonies, 
and is only obstructed and degraded by them. When, 
therefore, we affirm that the gospel and its ordinances 
are the world's sole hope, we mean to affirm that it is 
the preaching of these simple and divinely energetic 
truths to which we have alluded, accompanied with 
the two Christian Sacraments, and disencumbered 
of all unnecessary outward form, that is God's 
appointed instrumentality, for the raising up of 
debased humanity to life and virtue, to holiness and 
solid peace. 

"With this brief statement of what the gospel is con- 
ceived to be in its elemental truths, we proceed 
directly to the confirmation of the general statement 
that in it lies the only hope of a sinning and suffering 
world. 

"We here take, as the ground of the whole argu- 
ment, the nature of the evils to be cured. It is true, 
we apprehend, that but few persons, comparatively, 
even among the most thoughtful and enlightened, are 



262 DISCOURSES ON THE 

accustomed to contemplate these evils in their full 
extent and import. We see and admit that the con- 
dition of mankind is in many respects a sad one ; but 
from onr infancy we have been familiar with all its 
painful aspects. We have never known by experience 
a happier state than that which we see to be the lot of 
our mortal race at present, and are not able, therefore, 
to judge of what we are, by comparison with what 
we were, or with what we might now have been. 
But suppose we make a thorough examination of the 
case. Suppose we start the question, with a view to 
find for ourselves an answer, how men compare in 
character and happiness with angels, and earth as an 
abode with heaven. At once an appalling disparity 
appears. In the one case, everything is perfect, in 
the other absolutely nothing. But why this mighty 
difference ? Whence is it that this world, so glorious 
in its structure and adornings, so radiant with the 
beauty of the Infinite, is not the abode of perfect life 
and joy? As respects their intellectual and moral 
nature, men claim affinity with angels ; why are they 
not complete in their development and blest in their 
estate, like them ? These questions would lead us to 
the whole melancholy truth. We are apt to rest sat- 
isfied with the general and very vague admission that 
sin has disturbed the harmony which should subsist 
between God and man, and that it may be necessary, 



FORMATION OF BELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 263 

by way of preparation for a future life, that some- 
thing should be done to adjust the difference. It is, 
indeed, the prime difficulty in the case, that the indi- 
vidual soul is broken off from God by the transgres- 
sion of his law. It is a momentous fact that every 
human being has need to prepare for the retributions 
of the eternal state. But these statements are only 
a fragment of the truth. If we would state the whole, 
we must say that the blighting effects of sin extend 
to man's entire nature, to all his social and moral 
relations, and all the cii'cumstances of his being. 
Nothing in himself, nothing in his fellowship with 
others, nothing in the state of things around him, is 
what it would have been, had he not become a sinner. 
Either really, or in relation to his feelings, everything 
is changed. 

Look, for instance, at the body, that wonderful 
piece of mechanism. Whence its liability to so 
many derangements, its infirmities, its pains, its 
decay and final dissolution ? Because of sin it is 
condemned to return to dust ; and, more or less 
remotely, it receives the recompense of irregular 
appetite and lawless passion in disease and suffering ; 
so that while, for aught that appears, it might have 
been always elastic, fresh, and youthful, a fit organ 
for the spirit, it has come to be a shattered and per- 
ishable thing. Look at the intellectual nature also. 



264: DISCOURSES ON THE 

It seems almost angelic in its constitutional powers ; 
and yet how far it is, in fact, from a perfect condition 
and a healthful and vigorous activity ! It is, in 
by far the greater number of cases, but very imper- 
fectly unfolded and disciplined, and in not a few 
instances is developed scarcely at all. It is be- 
clouded with the fogs of prejudice, encumbered by 
biases, cheated by the vagaries of its own fancy, 
duped by superstition, and rendered grovelling by 
sensual inclinations. Look, further still, at the moral 
sensibilities, made to appreciate the morally right 
and true and beautiful with an immediate and just 
perception, and to be delicately susceptible to the 
impression of moral obligation. In the great mass 
of men they are either perverted altogether, or 
rendered so blunt and torpid that they exhibit their 
proper results but in a very sliglit degree. Observe, 
finally, the social affections. They were given to 
bind each by tender affinities to all his kind. They 
were intended to originate and maintain sweet char- 
ities among such as are joined by the ties of kindred, 
and to spread over all the pathways of life an atmos- 
phere of benevolence and love. But what vast 
portions of mankind in all past ages, and in our own 
as well, have known nothing, or next to nothing, of 
the pleasures of pure friendship, nothing of domestic 
joys ; but have lived in social discord and corruption, 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 265 

possessed with evil passions, and being destroyers of 
eacli other's peace. Remember we are speaking of 
mankind in their natural condition ; as Christianity 
has found them, not as it has made them when it has 
been cordially received. 1:^0 one, certainly, who is 
acquainted with the history, or the present condition 
of mankind, can hesitate to admit that man is spirit- 
ually estranged from God ; and that, in body, in 
intellect, in his moral sensibilities, in his natural 
affections, in short, throughout his entire being and 
his whole condition in the world, he suffers the effects 
of sin and is subject to its power. 

Yes, go where paganism has had its seat, where 
the dogmas of false prophets and religionists have 
wrought out their results, where sensuous pomps 
and human traditions have corrupted and obscured 
the truth, and where infidelity, with its boast of 
superior wisdom, has cast out faith of every kind ; 
and there will be found in all these circumstances a 
moral degradation of humanity which reaches into 
every sphere of its activity, and penetrates every 
ramification of its interests. It is only a literal truth 
— except so far as the influence of Christianity has 
been practically felt — that the whole creation groan- 
eth and travaileth in pain together until now. The 
splendid civilizations of antiquity were only gilded 

aggregations of individual and social profligacy, and 

12 



DISCOTJESES ON THE 

literally rotted in their own corruptions. The 
immensely populous nations of modern Asia, are 
sunk in a debasement so complete that but few traces 
of any thing really noble in our nature are exhibited 
among them. Africa, taken altogether, is if possible 
in yet a worse condition. Even in the most favored 
portions of Europe and America, how vast the 
amount of such evils as result from moral degeneracy 
are yet to be removed before any near approximation 
to a state of general well-being can be reached ! We 
refer here only to facts which, to all well informed 
persons, are perfectly familiar. 

The bearing of these acknowledged facts, it will be 
seen, is this. The mischiefs which sin has wrought, 
both in separating the individual soul from God, and 
in deranging the whole economy of human society 
and human life, are plainly so great, so general, so 
deep-seated and inveterate, that there is not the 
smallest reason to think that the race ever would, or 
ever could, indeed, restore and purify itself. In the 
nature of the case, there is a plain necessity that some 
remedy should be applied of far mightier efficacy 
than belongs to any of those that lie within the range 
of man's own feeble powers. He could never, for 
himself, make peace with God, nor break from his 
own neck the miserable yoke of sin, nor regulate the 
conflicting moral elements within him, nor wake in 



FORMATION OF KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 267 

his soul those pure desires which alone could bear 
him on to a real exaltation. 

In accordance with this reasoning from the nature 
of human wants, is the important fact which we now 
notice, in the next place, that every attempt perma- 
nently to elevate and bless mankind by merely 
human instrumentalities and efforts has resulted in 
disastrous failure. Experiment on experiment has 
been made. ]^ever finding rest, but always like the 
troubled sea, humanity has reached in this direction 
and in that, and has had recourse to a variety of 
means in order to elevate itself. When individual 
man, oppressed with a sense of his own sad state, 
scourged by conscience, weary with the chase of 
shadows, pining with the hunger of an empty craving 
heart, has sought for some effectual relief, philos- 
ophy has discoursed to him sagaciously of the surnr- 
mwn honum ! She has led* him, wondering and 
bewildered, through all her subtle mazes ; has per- 
haps arnused him with beautiful theories of morals ; 
but she has left him, in the end, as unsatisfied and 
wretched as before, because, failing, utterly, to give 
him what he wanted. False systems of religion have 
put him at the task of gaining inward peace by the 
voluntary subjection of himself to outward suffering. 
On this track, he has fled from the face of his fellow- 



268 DISCOUKSES ON THE 

men. In the depths of the lonely wilderness, or in the 
murky caves of unfrequented mountains, he has fixed 
his cheerless dwelling. He has spread his pallet 
with thorns and lacerated his flesh with knotted 
scourges ; has watched, fasted, and mortified even his 
innocent desires ; and stifling the pleadings of nature 
in his heai;t, has sacrificed his own children to avert 
apprehended wrath and purchase inward peace. 
Bat has he gained his object by such means ? He 
may have quieted in some degree the accusings of a 
bewildered and perverted conscience; but has he 
made himself a happy, a complete, and morally 
exalted being ? N'ever. Every such expedient has 
proved vain. 

Nor has legislation ever been found effectual for 
the relief and the moral culture of mankind. It has, 
indeed, accomplished many useful things. It has 
studfed with attention, and often no doubt profoundly, 
the problems that concern the well-being of society. 
It has digested codes of laws and arranged the details 
of administration, with great sagacity and labor ; and 
has tried now this experiment of political economy, 
and now that. It has striven to balance the conflict- 
ing powers and to harmonize the discordant passions 
and interests of the various classes that compose the 
state. It has prescribed to men their style of dress, 
their recreations, their secular pursuits, their divin- 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 269 

ities and modes of worship. But, after all, the good 
effects of legislation have been extremely limited in 
comparison with the evils to be remedied ; and revo- 
lutions, anarchies, and popular debasement, have too 
often interrupted its action and defeated its designs. 
So in regard to other similar agencies. Poetry 
and eloquence have essayed to refine individual man 
and to elevate the aims and the spirit of society. 
They have sought to accomplish this by presenting 
to the thought ideal beauty and perfection ; by thrill- 
ing the sensibilities with the flow of harmonious 
numbers ; by stirring the deep emotions of the soul 
to high enthusiasm, and urging it to lofty under- 
takings by the force of sweet persuasion. Something 
has doubtless been achieved by these and kindred 
agencies, at certain times and to a moderate extent ; 
yet tbey have been, at best, but as stars above a 
stormy ocean, that shed some gleams of light upon 
the surface, but have not power to penetrate its 
depths, and still less, to lull its agitations to repose. 

In what is here asserted we are sustained by the 
voice of universal history. Its explicit testimony is, 
that while the causes to which we have referred and 
others like them have had an important influence on 
human things, they have never been able, either 
separately, or combined, to raise and purify and 
generally and effectually to bless mankind. This is 



270 DISCOURSES ON THE 

tlie melancholy record for all nations and for every 
age. The thousand sages and moralists of ancient 
and modern times may have conceived and spoken 
well on many points of doctrine and of duty. But 
what then ? They spoke it is certain without author- 
ity to give weight to their instructions ; without 
simplicity to render them intelligible ; without the 
certainty that what they taught was true ; and with- 
out that adaptation to the hearts and consciences, to 
the nature and the wants of men, which alone could 
give them access to the unreflecting multitude. The 
Jeromes, the Antonies, and the Basils of corrupt 
Christianity, the ascetics of Persia and the farther 
East, may be allowed to have uttered just and useful 
precepts on deadness to the world and religious 
retirement and meditation. But the attempt to 
impart true spiritual life and peace to the souls of 
men by such methods as they exemplified and recom- 
mended, was always found to be as futile in experi- 
ment as it was absurd in its idea. The Solons and 
Numas, the Justinians and Alfreds, of all ages, have 
certainly exhibited great practical wisdom, and often 
perhaps have done all that the nature of the case 
admitted, in giving laws and framing constitutions. 
But the fact is undeniable, that humanpassion has 
proved to be beyond the control of laws. By no 
fault of theirs as statesmen and legislators, it has 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 271 

laughed to scorn their nicely adjusted systems, and 
the floods of licentiousness have gone over their 
checks and barriers and have swept them all away. 
The masses of mankind have neither been lifted from 
their debasement nor made happy by their labors. 
"With the fact before us that the great masters of 
eloquence and poetry have breathed forth glorious 
utterances, words of beauty and of power that have 
embodied noble thoughts and have sounded through 
the ages, the other fact that they have been appreci- 
ated, and even recognised only by the comparatively 
few, is also too plain to be denied. This unequivocal 
testimony of all history that the illustrious individual 
men of different ages, who, from their personal 
endowments, or the eminence of their position, have 
seemed most likely to succeed in the attempt to 
elevate and purify mankind, have never in reality 
succeeded ; and that the advancement of the race has 
been mainly in connection with Christianity, at once 
demonstrates the insufficiency of merely human 
means, and makes it plain that if there is any hope at 
all that the world will ever be brought to a state of 
general virtue, intelligence, and happiness, Christian- 
ity in its essential truths, in other words the simple 
Gospel of Jesus Christ, must furnish the ground on 
which it rests. 



272 DISCOURSES ON THE 

We reach, then, at this point, the third part of the 
argument ; wherein we have to show that the Gospel 
as prescribed by the Son of God, does in fact embody 
in it all the elements of moral power that are re- 
quired in order to the raising of the whole family of 
man to an exalted and happy state. To exhibit this 
part of the subject fully, would occupy far more time 
and room than are now allowed us. We can only 
suggest the material points, and this iil the fewest 
words. 

What then are, let us inquire, the elements of 
moral power demanded in an agency, that it may 
effectually reach the case in which mankind are 
found ? 

To present the matter in the simplest possible way, 
we answer — that the things required in order to the 
recovery of sinful men are grace — love — and the 
SPiRrruAL ENERGY which shall give these their appro- 
priate influence on the heart. In other words, the 
instrumentality which would restore sinful humanity 
to peace and purity and elevated life, must be able 
first to relieve the conscience from the burden of 
guilt which past transgressions have imposed, and 
then to draw its affections toward holiness and make 
them to centre on God as the infinitely Holy. It 
must assure of full release from the curse of sin which 



FORMATION OF KELIGI0T7S OPINIONS. 273 

rests upon the soul, and of complete and final rescue 
from the slavery of sin in which it is involved. 

We say then that the Gospel of Jesus Christ does 
come to the heart of man in all the power of free and 
abounding graxie. It comes, that is, with the full and 
specific offer of unqualified forgiveness on the part of 
God for past iniquities. It has always been just here 
that all mere human devices for the elevation of the 
world have revealed their worthlessness. They could 
not meet the soul's first want. They could not utter 
a word, with any certainty, as to whether there could 
be any such thing as pardon for transgression. But 
go to human beings where and when you will, and 
speak to them of God and duty; and the moment you 
can gain attention and can bring home to the mind a. 
clear conviction of the obligation of God's law, that 
moment you find a burden on the conscience that 
presses like a millstone. " Oh, my sins ! my sins ! I 
feel that they deserve a heavy judgment. They 
cover me with shame and fill me with foreboding. 
God is pure — infinitely pure ; I dare not even lift up 
my eyes to him, for the overpowering splendor of his 
holiness fiashes on the darkness of my soul like a de- 
vouring fire ! What shall I do ? Whither shall I fly ? 
I deserve the displeasure of the eternally Good whom 
I have so causelessly abused ! This weight upon my 

heart must crush me, for I cannot roll it off !"^ — Such, 
12* 



274: DISCOURSES ON THE 

for substance is the language of every awakened con- 
science. Will you offer to such a man an ingenious 
speculation, a plausible conjecture, the performance 
of a penance or a ceremony, an outward reformation, 
or any similar expedient, as a relief? You may as 
well propose to amuse with idle tales, the wretch that 
writhes upon a bed of torture. But hark! the 
word " FoEGivEN"Ess !" " God can and will for- 
give the penitent !" proclaims the Gospel. " Can 
he? Will he?" cries the oppressed despairing soul. 
" Glad tidings ! glad tidings ! — then there is hope ; 
there is hope for me!" ^nd when he is pointed 
to Christ crucified, to an atoning Saviour, 'to the 
Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, 
his soul is stirred to its lowest depths to find that his 
first great want, that of deliverance from merited con- 
demnation, is, by the grace which the Gospel offers 
him, most fully met. 

But the work of entire recovery is as yet but half 
accomplished. Let the Ethiopian change his skin 
and the leopard his spots, then may they also who are 
accustomed to do evil learn to do well. The power 
of disordered appetite and inclination is a mighty 
power. The chains of sinful habit are like chains of 
triple brass. The apathy of blunted moral feeling is 
like the drowsiness of a lethean stupor. The law of 
sin, in the members, brings the whole man into cap- 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 275 

tivity to tlie power of sin. Li addition to forgiveness, 
therefore, the case of the sinful soul demands some- 
thing which can evolve within a moral force, a vital 
spring of action which shall have energy enough to 
conquer fiied propensity and lawless passion, to wake 
into activity the moral affections and change their 
habitual current, in a word to emancipate the moral 
man. 

Just what the case requires the Gospel offers. It 
presents, in objective facts, to the understanding and 
the heart, the riches of an infinite love in God ; and 
reveals the certainty of an inward subjective ministry 
of the divine Spirit for the renovation of the soul. 
The Gospel, wherever it goes, at once makes known, 
and is attended by, a special vitalizing spiritual influ- 
ence which is to the obdurate unfeeling heart on 
which it falls, what the sunshine and the genial 
showers are to the cold hard barren earth — a soften- 
ing, life-producing agency. Then it exhibits God him- 
self as stooping to redeetn ! That very being against 
whom sin has been committed it reveals as full of 
compassion towards the sinner ; so full of pm'e, pater- 
nal, yes more than paternal love, that since he might 
not otherwise fitly spare the sinner, he spared not his 
own son, but gave him freely for the world, that who- 
soever should believe on him might have eternal life. 
It presents that Son as voluntarily leaving the glory 



276 DISCOURSES ON THE 

wMch he had with the Father before the world was ; 
as being made flesh, as descending to the condition 
of a servant, as being despised and rejected of men, 
as endming inward agony beyond description in the 
garden, although himself sinless and pure, as making 
his soul an offering for sin, the one sacrifice, of which 
all Jewish victims were but types ; or as he himself ex- 
pressed it, as shedding his blood for many for the re- 
mission of sins. It makes known the Father as 
receiving, through the mediation of the Son, all, even 
the chief of sinners, who believe in and accept him, 
into the estate and privileges of his holy family and 
to the heirship of his eternal love and blessing. 

This then is the wonderful economy of man's re- 
demption as devised and executed by that very good- 
ness which human sin has dishonored and abused. 
These are the heights and depths of a love towards 
the guilty which is immeasurable and infinite. The 
inflexibleness of eternal justice, and the yearning of 
eternal mercy are together unfolded to rebellious 
men. Whatever is grand and awful in unbending 
devotion to the right ; whatever is sweet and win- 
ning in benevolence that is spontaneous and pure ; 
whatever is admirable in condescension ; whatever is 
touching in suffering borne by a free self-sacrifice for 
the sake of the undeserving ; whatever is lovely and 
Doble in the goodness that receives and embraces the 



FOEMATION OF KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 277 

guilty who are penitent, God in Christ exhibits to 
the world in the simple yet stupendous facts which 
constitute the Gospel. When these facts, by the 
power of the divine Spirit, are so effectually set home 
on the hearts of sinful men that they are seen and 
felt in somewhat of their proper force and import, the 
rocky heart is melted into tenderness, the resisting 
will is finally subdued, the power of sin is broken, and 
there is opened a fountain in the deep recesses of the 
soul, from which thenceforward there gushes up a tide 
of holy love to God, and to all that is truly excellent 
and pure. This is the living water, of which the 
Saviour said — ^it shall be in the soul a well of water 
springing up into everlasting life. It is, in fact, a 
new, spiritual, progressive and immortal life begun — 
a life that has energy enough to raise up from its ruins 
man's originally Godlike nature, to adorn it with 
every moral grace and virtue, and restore it to its 
pristine glory. Such power is in the Cross of Christ. 
Such is the moral efficacy of that Gospel, the sum and 
substance of which is Christ crucified — a revelation 
of grace and love and regenerating power. ITeither 
subjectively nor objectively is any provision needful 
to mankind, in their state of ;in and suffering, that 
the Gospel does not bring them. 

K scepticism denies what it has been our purpose 
to maintain, we have only to appeal to undeniable 



278 DISCOURSES ON THE 

facts in the history of Christianity. We have already 
s§en that every human device has failed to recover 
mankind from the debasement and misery of sin. 
But has the Gospel failed in a single instance in 
which it has been fairly tried ? Where is the individ- 
ual, where is the community, or the nation, that has 
practically received the Christian religion, that has 
not been elevated and made virtuous and happy ex- 
.actly in proportion to the thoroughness and cordiality 
of the reception ? Where are now found, in all the 
world, the highest excellencies of private character, 
the best discharge of social duties, the greatest amount 
of public order, intelligence and virtue, the largest 
measure, in short, of every thing that charms and 
adorns existence here, or qualifies for higher scenes 
of being? Where but in those favored places in 
which the simple truths of uncorrupted Christianity 
are most impressed on the minds of men ? It cannot 
be denied that evangelical truth has made the world 
to bloom wherever it has found a way. It has made 
good men and great men without number. It has 
filled millions, in every walk in life, with a calm and 
abiding peace, in spite of all the storms and wrestlings 
and sorrows that belong to an evil world, and has 
sent them, victors over death, to people the eternal 
paradise of God. The experience of all time declares 
the essential gospel of Jesus Christ to be universally, 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 279 

the power of God unto salvation to every one that be- 
lie veth. It is, therefore, to be distinctly recognised 
and used as the sole hope of a fallen world. 

Whoever then, is the enemy of genuine Christian- 
ity, is, it is plain, the enemy of mankind. "Whoever 
attempts to weaken its authority or obstruct its pro- 
gress among men, not only assails the best hopes, the 
highest welfare of the world's future, but does what 
in him lies to consign that future to wretchedness and 
guilt without relief. The ever renewed attempts to 
overthrow the religion of the 'New Testament, whether 
originating in pride of intellect, in the blindness of 
an unbelieving heart, or in direct and conscious hos- 
tility to truth and goodness, are all indeed futile. 
The truth of God will ever stand, as it has stood, un- 
shaken, to the confusion of those that war against it. 
But such will reveal themselves as the foes of human 
happiness, as wanting the spirit of God's kingdom, 
and as, whether intentionally or not, the allies of the 
prince of darkness. Who would not shrink from as- 
suming this position ? 

If then you hold the welfare of the world as 
dear ; if you would wish to put an end to the 
groans which, through the ages past, it has been 
sending up to heaven ; if you would desire that the 
day of which prophets have foretold such glorious 



280 DISCOUESES, ETC. 

things may come, when joy and gladness, as the fruit 
of pm-ity and love, of order, freedom and general in- 
telligence and piety, shall reign through all the earth ; 
if you would be yourselves benefactors of your species, 
while exalted and made happy in your own persons ; 
accept heartily and practically the Gospel as it is in 
its simple yet momentous facts, and do your utmost 
while you live to bring others to feel its blessed power. 

«' 'Tis revelation satisfies all doubts, 
Explains all mysteries except her own, 
And so ilhiminates the path of life, 
That fools discover it, and stray no more. 
Now tell me, dignified and sapient sir, 
My man of morals, nurtured in the shades 
Of Academus— is this false or true ? 
Is Christ the abler teacher, or the schools ? 
If Christ, then why resort at every turn. 
To Athens, or to Kome, for wisdom short 
Of man's occasions, when in Him reside 
Grace, knowledge, comfort— an unfathomed store." 

Yes it is time indeed to abandon the poor folly of 
seeking in the wisdom and the power of man, what is 
only to be found in the wisdom and the power of God 
in Jesus Christ— relief from the guilt that crushes and 
enslaves humanity, and from the woes, individual and 
social, temporal and eternal, which sin has made the 
sad inheritance of our self-ruined race. Christ is the 
Light of the world, and in him is the Life of men. 
His Gospel is the world's sole hope. 



GOD TO BE CHOSEN AS A GUIDE. 



Jeb. iii. 4. Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me^ 
my Father^ them art the guide of ony youth. 

The period of youth, consider it in whatever light 
we will, is full of interest. It is the period of com- 
parative freedom from the contaminations of an evil 
world. It is the season of happy impulses, of glow- 
ing hopes, of high aspirations, of sincere and warm 
affections, of free and generous confidence ; and in 
general, of the vii-tues that are most lovely and the 
manners that are most engaging. It is also the morn- 
ing of life's day ; the still lake out of which issues its 
rushing stream ; the gate-way to its arena ; the seed- 
time for its harvests of good or ill. To all who have 
come to know by experience what life actually is, and 
who have seriously pondered its vast and solemn re- 
sponsibilities, a group of young persons just advancing 
to maturity is one of the most interesting sights to be 
met with in the world. 
(281) 



282 DISCOURSES ON THE 

It is especially so, to the true minister of Christ. — 
He watches for the souls of all, as one that must give 
an account. But he sees in those who are on the 
threshold of active life, the opening buds of the gar- 
den which he has it in charge to cultivate and keep. 
He comprehends their relation to the future, and 
from his peculiar position, he has a clearer and more 
impressive view than most others are likely to have, 
of their special circumstances and their perils. As he 
stands upon his watch-tower, and sees them with 
cheerful looks and hopeful spirits coming forward to 
meet life's inevitable toils and dangers, he is like one 
who posted on some headland, looks abroad on a new 
and well-rigged fleet, that with snowy canvas and 
streamers sporting with the wind, freighted with pre- 
cious treasures and manned with noble hearts, is just 
issuing from the port and putting forth on the stormy 
sea. It is impossible for such a person not to look on- 
ward from this fair array, to the scene which will pre- 
sent itself when the howling tempest has done its deso- 
lating work. Many a good ship will then lie an un- 
sightly wreck, many a one will have gone down into 
the unknown deep, some will have been left crippled 
and scarcely better than destroyed, and only a few of 
the whole number will have safely weathered the 
fearful buffetings and accomplished the objects of the 
voyage. Or, the Christian pastor, while he surveys 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 283 

the youth around him, may be likened to an officer, 
who is marshalling the young and brave, and prepar- 
ing them, by proper discipline, to go forth to the con- 
tests of the field. Such a one looks now only on 
freshness, strength and beauty. He admires the light 
and graceful movement, the well-adjusted trappings, 
and more than all, the lofty ardor of his band. But 
then he looks forward, with prophetic glance, to the 
day succeeding battle. He sees only a remnant of all 
his goodly company escaped safe from the deadly 
struggle. Many have fallen in the carnage, and have 
perished. Many are wounded to linger on and die. 
Many will live only to suffer all their days from the 
loss of limbs, or other enduring injuries. Can it be 
otherwise, than that when the watchman for souls sees 
those of his charge who are yet in early years just 
putting forth on life's eventful sea ; or, according to 
the other illustration, just girding on the harness for 
the great life-battle through which they are to pass, 
he should regard them with a yearning heart, and 
should offer for them his earnest prayers, and give to 
them such counsels as his own experience and obser- 
vation and more especially the Word of God suggest. 
It is, my younger friends, with deep interest that 
I think of you and look on you from week to week. 
For you, with sincerity I hope, I do habitually bow 
the knee to the Father of all Mercies, beseeching him 



284 DISCOUESES ON THE 

to bless and save you ; and to you, to you in a special 
manner, I bring bis gracious message. The great 
God, your Father and my Father, in his super-abound- 
ing goodness, does virtually address each of you, in 
the language of the text. You may rightly take, as 
if addressed immediately to you, this touching appeal 
to Israel of old. Wilt thou not from this time cry un- 
to me — my Father ! thou art the guide of my youth. 
I would, if possible, assist you to decide the question 
thus proposed. In doing this I will ask you to con- 
sider the need in which you stand of guidance, the 
wisdom of making God your guide, and the fitness of 
the present as the time in which to receive him in 
that character. 

I say then, first of all, that you do greatly need 
some faithful and effective guidance in the shaping of 
your lives. The need is at once obvious and pressing. 
It rests upon so many grounds, that in any attempt to 
state them, the only difficulty lies in being brief. — 
Some of them, however, I will notice. 

You need such guidance because the path of duty 
and of safety is often exceedingly difficult to find. 
The great principles on which every person is bound 
to act in the ordering of his life, are indeed well 
settled. They are authoritatively delivered in the 
Scriptures, are assented to by reason and conscience. 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 285 

and have been confirmed and illustrated by exper- 
ience. The principles to which I here refer, are the 
general principles of moral duty ; as, for example, 
that we should acknowledge the existence and per- 
fection of God, that we should love him first and best 
of all, and our neighbors as ourselves ; together with 
the common laws of prudence, such as that intelli- 
gence, industry, economy, forethought and the like, 
are necessary conditions of success and of safety and 
happiness in living. In respect to these, there need 
be no perplexity. But with you, as capable of reflec- 
tion, of judgment and of choice, is left the responsi- 
bility of making the application of these principles in 
all the practical details of life. In every important 
step, almost at every hour of every day, you are 
obliged to raise the questions — Is this right ? Is this 
wrong? Is this true? Is this expedient? Is this 
safe? — and then immediately to decide and act on 
your decision. Often when determining what you 
are bound to accept as duty or to receive as truth, you 
have many circumstances to consider, many probabili- 
ties to estimate, many opposing arguments to weigh. 
You are aware that the most trifling actions, or those 
that seem such, are often followed by most momen- 
tous consequences, and so you are at a loss to know 
how much importance to attach to what you do. In 
short, while the general direction in which you are 



286 DISCOURSES ON THE 

to move, if you intend to live wisely, is obvious 
enough, you may still find perplexities at every point 
to extricate yourselves from whicli will try, perhaps 
even baffle, your utmost wisdom. The wrong ways 
are a thousand, the right way is but one. The wrong 
looks often like the right, the right often like the 
wrong. Who is sufficient for these things ? Who of 
you can trust himself ? — can venture to take his way 
unaided through all the mazes of the labyrinth of 
life, to shape his own course, amidst treacherous shoals 
and hidden rocks across the mighty sea ? You can- 
not seriously consider the difficulty you must find in 
determining your way without perceiving clearly 
that you need effectual guidance. 

You need such guidance, also, because your own 
strong impulses are likely to mislead you. We had 
occasion in a preceding discourse and in another con- 
nection, to notice the fact that the natural appetites 
and passions, and the desires and propensities which 
choice and habit have created, may exert a very great 
influence on the judgment. This is true not only in 
deciding between truth and falsehood, but as well in 
deciding between right and wrong. It is easy to be- 
lieve that to be right, or useful, which accords with 
inclination. It is hard to think that to be obligatory, 
or best, to which the feelings are averse, and which 
involves the necessity of painful self-denial. Let two 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 287 

paths lie before tlie weary traveller, tlie one of whicli 
leads smoothly along the plain, while the other 
climbs the rugged steep, and he is strongly predis- 
posed to believe the more agreeable the right. 

Now although it is certainly true, in an important 
sense, that wisdom's ways are pleasantness, and all 
her paths are peace, it is by no means true that all 
her ways are agreeable to present inclination, or the 
bent of the sinful heart. You will find often that 
appetite and passion will plead against the plain and 
positive demands of duty ; and it will require a strong 
resistance to overcome this pleading and to make a 
choice against all selfish impulses, in obedience to 
conscience. How great then the embarrassment 
which the desire of self-indulgence must many times 
occasion, when duty is not plain, but doubtful, and 
you have it to determine! How easily, in such 
circumstances, may the impulses of feeling pervert 
the understanding, and so make the worse appear the 
better reason as to lead you utterly astray ! Is it not 
nearly certain, since you form your decisions in the 
affairs of every day under such misleading infiuences, 
that without some wise guidance you will be drawn 
aside from duty and from peace ; that you will be led 
into the pursuit of some of the thousand phantoms, 

*« That lead to bewilder and dazzle to blind "— 

and which after dancing for a while before the eye, 



288 DISCOTJESES ON THE 

on a sudden grow dim and disappear. Such, a result 
would seem to be inevitable. 

Still further, you need guidance in the shaping of 
your lives, because there are many who will studiously 
seek your ruin. It is hard always to make the young 
believe this ; yet sooner or later experience brings 
conviction of the fact. There are found even in the 
best conditions of society, the openly debased and 
vicious. They have broken away from moral restraint 
and disowned the authority of conscience. They 
have given full dominion to appetite and lust. Like 
the master whom they have given themselves to 
serve, they have said in their hearts- 

" Evil be thou my good "— 

and like him, they go about continually seeking 
whom they may devour. Having learned to be 
unscrupulously immoral or even impious, and unblush- 
ingly to glory in their shame, they are ready to make 
others as shameless as themselves, not that they 
boldly avow this as their object ; if they did this the 
danger were comparatively small. But by their 
spirit and example, they first taint the moral atmos- 
phere around those whom they are desirous to cor- 
rupt, and then gradually draw them, by one artifice 
and another, down to their own pollution. 

Besides the grossly wicked, there are many others 
who will seek to reach you with influences fitted to 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 289 

destroy your virtuous sentiments and principles and 
your ultimate well being. There are many not 
openly corrupt, who are utterly corrupt in heart. 
While they exhibit, perhaps, respectable outward 
morals, this class of persons will either distinctly 
advocate, or covertly let fall the most loose and 
pernicious maxims and opinions. K possible, they 
will infuse into your minds their own dreary sceptic- 
ism, their light estimate of serious things and espe- 
cially their contempt for the piety and conscien- 
ciousness of decidedly religious men. By such 
methods, though retaining themselves some outward 
show of respect for goodness, they will strive to sap 
all the foundations of goodness in your heart. It is 
difficult to say which is the more dangerous to 
encounter, those who are unblushingly wicked in their 
lives, or those whose depravity is artful and con- 
cealed. 

Through such enemies to your virtue and peace, 
and others which need not be particularly described, 
you have to make your way. To avoid them is 
impossible. To escape their influence and to elude 
their artifices is often extremely difficult. When 
least suspecting clanger, your feet may be entangled 
in their net. Oh, who that comprehends how much 
he has at stake, can help trembling, when he thinks 

that so many and such deadly foes beset all the path 

13 



290 DISCOUESES ON TUE 

of life he is to tread ! Can any young person, who 
seriously reflects on his position, doubt that he greatly 
needs some friendly direction on his way ? If then 
we also add the great revealed truth that the prince 
and powers of darkness are likewise ever watching to 
allure your feet into the ways of death, new grounds 
of apprehension are supplied which make the need 
to appear more urgent still. 

I will only mention further that your need of 
guidance is strongly set forth in the melancholy fact 
that so many are continually ruined. Where many 
fall, there is reason that all should fear. Look then 
at facts, which are offered on all sides to your notice, 
in illustration of the perils that beset you. Or if you 
will take a wider view, apj^ly to those whose oppor- 
tunities and experience have been greater than your 
own. Go to some man now past the meridian of life, 
whose character and habits, with the divine blessing, 
have made him honored and successful. He was one 
of a band, more or less numerous, who set out in life 
together. They came forth from their homes and 
from the school-room differing, perhaps, but little 
either in their talents or acquirements. Ask him to 
tell you where those his early associates are now, and 
what he remembers of their history. Ah ! how 
painful the recollection and the recital ! One, he 
will say, as he brings back the half-forgotten past, 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 291 

looked on the wine when it was red, and he went 
early to the drunkard's grave. Another yielded to 
the love of vain display ; and after a brief career of 
brilliant folly and extravagance, he passed by bank- 
ruptcy to poverty and was soon forgotten by the 
world. A third indulged, at first, in some trifling 
dishonesty, and then was led on till he became a 
villain, and finally went to prison, or to an ignomi- 
nious death. A fourth gave loose to sensual appetite ; 
and then from impurity of thought and word, he 
went on step by step, till he suffered the miseries, 
and met at last the fate of the worn out profligate. 
A fifth was taken in the gambler's snare and fell by 
suicide. A sixth — but why should I go on? So 
daily perish, on life's broad arena, the hopes of 
fathers and of mothers ! So sink into the depths of 
shame and ruin, many who should have shone as 
brilliant stars in the galaxy of intellect— should have 
found a place among the noblest spirits that have 
ever done honor to humanity and climbed the envi- 
able heights of fair renown. The roadside of life is 
all whitened with the bones of the multitudes who 
have fallen thus, having made, by their own missteps, 
an utter wreck of their hopes, their characters, and 
their all. "With such evidence of the perils of your 
future, can you doubt your need of some friendly 
hand to lead you ? 



292 DISCOUESES ON THE 

Let us pass on, then, in the second place, to insist 
on the reasonableness — the wisdom — of making God 
your guide. On this part of the subject I must be 
comparatively brief. A thousand reasons might 
easily be mentioned, why every young person, what- 
ever may be his particular position, should look up 
with a filial . spirit unto God, and cry — my Father, 
THOU art the guide of my youth. I must content 
myself however with two which seem to be the chief, 
and which may in some sort comprehend the rest, or 
at least suggest them. 

The first is, that you owe it to God himself thus to 
honor him with vour confidence. It is his ri^ht to 
expect it of you. That your hearts should be directed 
towards him, that you should recognise him as the 
Fountain of all wisdom, as the providential Director 
of events, as the Father of your spirits and the benev- 
olent Guardian of your welfare, and should commit 
yourselves to the leading of his will, — all necessarily 
results from the fact that he is what lie is, God over 
all, the perfection of being, the essence and centre of 
all goodness. Since he is such a being, he is in the 
highest degree competent to guide you. He most 
perfectly understands the constitution of your nature, 
for he made it what it is. He knows every spring of 
thought, feeling, and desire, and every avenue by 
which either good or evil influence can find access to 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOIJS OPINIONS. 293 

your heart. When the line of duty is obscure and 
you are troubled in spirit with perplexity and doubt, 
he can make light to break in upon you as when the 
morning dawns in beauty upon the night. When 
passion is restless and clamors for indulgence, he can 
so breathe his spirit on you, as to hush all the tumult 
of the soul to peace. When wicked men and wicked 
spirits are watching around you with intent to destroy 
you, if they can, he can put over you the shield of 
his almightiness, and defend you from every device 
by which they would work you ill. Thus qualified 
to afford you the very guidance that you need, when 
out of pure good will to you he condescends to offer 
it, can it be doubtful whether it is due to him that 
you should gratefully accept the offer ? 'Not to do 
it is to treat him with dishonor. That you have not 
done it hitherto, if indeed you have failed to do it, 
has given him reason to say in reference to you as 
he said in respect to Israel, by the Prophet — ^If I' 
then be a Father where is now mine honor ? 

The second reason which ought to determine 
you to take God to be your guide is this ; that 
God alone can afford you a sufficient guidance. 
That He is able to grant you an effectual safe- 
conduct, has just now been observed. But where 
can you find another to whose care and leading 
you can safely and without anxiety commit the 



294: DISCOUESES ON THE 

infinitely precious interests of your being? Do 
you think of parents? Have you a parent who is 
wise enough, and strong enough to guide and keep 
you in all the emergencies of life, and who is also 
omnipresent ? Will you choose your favorite teacher, 
or the moralist, or the philosopher you most admire ? 
Believe it, you will find when the hour of trial comes, 
that you can as soon light up black midnight with a 
taper, or defend yourselves against wild beasts with 
straws, as solve your gloomy doubts and make your 
safety sure, by any such assistance. Will you rely 
on your own reason to conduct you ? And so did 
thousands who now groan beneath the hopeless wreck 
of ruined happiness and ruined souls ! l^o — no, my 
youthful friends ; neither will any human wisdom, 
nor any human aid, be found equal to your need. 
Learn all you can from the counsels of wise parents* 
Despise not the teachings of the schools, nor the 
lessons of true philosophy. Develop your own reason 
and listen to its voice. But trust in none of these 
as your grand reliance. God alone can be your suf- 
ficient guide. 

It only remains therefore, in the third place, to con- 
sider the question of time. When should God's 
offered guidance be accepted ? May it be accepted 
now ? We wish to insist on the fitness of securing it 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 295 

at once. Wilt thou not from this time, cry nnto 
me ? Such is the divine demand. 

The fact that the present is a jpractiGoble time — a 
time in which, without hindrance, God may be intel- 
ligently and cordially accepted as a guide — is in 
itself a proof that it is a proper time. If you are ever 
to enjoy God's guidance — ever to have him lead you 
through the trials and the perils of the wilderness of 
life, it must be by your own deliberate and hearty 
act. At some specific time, you must cry to him for 
the purpose of expressing your desire. Humbly, 
earnestly, and as one that cannot do without it, you 
must ask at his hands the blessing which you want. 
What then is there to forbid the immediate presenta- 
tion of your suit ? You are now in the enjoyment of 
health and reason, with nothing to prevent you from 
attending to the matter intelligently and calmly. On 
the part of God, there is nothing to hinder your free 
approach to the mercy-seat, and nothing to shut out 
your request. Around you is the holy stillness of the 
sabbath, and all the sweet and sacred influences of the 
Christian sanctuary; so that if you are really disposed 
to take your gracious Father as your Guide in 
this auspicious hour, there is nothing to oppose. You 
may now secure this inestimable good. This hour of 
grace is therefore a fit, because a most favorable time. 

Still further, \\\q present time is tlie very time that 
13^ 



296 DISCOUESES ON THE 

God himself proposes. Eemember now thy Creator. 
So everywhere throughout the Scriptures. It is always 
in the present, and never in the future, that he issues 
his commands and holds out his invitations. This 
makes your duty plain. Suppose that some person 
of distinction had proposed to grant you a great favor, 
to receive which you were to call on him at his dwel- 
ling. If he had speciiied no time at which you should 
present yourself, you might naturally feel solicitude 
lest you should disoblige him by calling at an incon- 
venient hour. But he himself has precisely fixed the 
time. Then surely you can feel no embarrassment 
whatever. IsTo hour can be so suitable as that which 
he has named. The case is just the same in the mat- 
ter now before us. In offering himself to you, as a 
kind, a faithful and an all-sufficient guide, the Father 
of all mercy is pleased to name the time in which you 
may accept the benefit. What other time, let me de- 
mand of you, can be so fit as this present passing 
hour which he has specified. Wilt thou not from this 
time cry unto me ! 

But this is not all. It is at this present time that 
your need of the blessing in question is becoming 
manifest and urgent. The difficulties and the dangers 
that create the need, are not remote, but are now ac- 
tually at hand. If it is true that they are likely to 
thicken as you go forward, it is true also that they 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 297 

are already numerous and formidable enough. Plain- 
ly it is here, at the very opening of life's great and 
momentous scene, at that stand-point from which 
there are so many divergent paths, that it is especial- 
ly fit that you should choose your guide. You want 
now his friendly offices, that you may not start wrong 
in the race. You want them now that you may not 
waste in bewilderment and error, the choicest, fresh- 
est, palmiest days of your existence, or stumbling at 
the outset, be precipitated to an untimely and fatal 
fall. Is it not pre-eminently fit that you should now 
take hold of God's conducting hand, since it is at this 
time that it will be most signally a blessing to you to 
be directed by it. 

Finally, the fact that the present may not im- 
probably be the only time in which you will have it 
in your power to secure the divine guidance, affords 
yet another illustration of the fitness of the opportu- 
nity now afforded. Yoa remember what the Scrip- 
tures say of those who have rejected God's advances : 
Because I have called and ye refused, I have stretched 
out my hand and no man regarded, but ye have set 
at naught all my counsel and would none of my re- 
proof; I also will laugh at your calamity ; I will 
mock when your fear cometh ; when your fear cometh 
as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirl- 
wind, when distress and anguish come upon you ; then 
13* 



DISCOUESES ON THE 

shall ye call upon me, but I will not answer ; ye shall 
seek me early, but ye shall not find me ; for that ye 
hated instruction and did not choose the fear of the 
Lord. Appalling words ! A very brief period, you 
who are now in the freshness and blossom of your 
youth, may bring important changes in God's mode 
of dealing with you. It may cut you off from the 
Christian privileges you now enjoy. It may, by 
some visitation of divine Providence which it shall 
bring, so disturb and agitate your mind with cares or 
sufferings, as to render you incapable of cool reflection. 
It may place you in circumstances in which it shall 
be morally impossible for you to make God your friend 
and to secure his protecting care. In a word, if you 
do not accept the present call of God, and respond 
with a sincere and earnest heart — my Father, thou art 
the guide of my youth — it is highly probable that 
many of you, at least, will never ask his guidance till 
too late, and for the w^ant of it will go astray, as so 
many have done before you, and miserably perish. 
Oh, is not this most eminently the fitting time for the 
final turning of your soul to God, in the recognition 
of him as your only sufficient guide ? 

Will you listen then to God's gracious call at once ? 
Through the great sacrifice of Calvary, the dying love 
of Jesus, you may become a child of God to-day, a 
holy, happy child, if you have not been one before. 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 299 

These hours of youth are flying, flying swiftly like va- 
pors driven by the wind. Onward — onward to all 
that is serious in life, in death, and in the eternity be- 
yond, you are hastening rapidly, with the steady 
march of time. The question what shall be your 
characters and destiny will soon be unalterably set- 
tled. Shallit le settled well f Would that I had the 
power to lay this solemn question in all its proper 
weight, upon each of your souls ! Would that I had 
the power to uncover in your sight the perils that 
shall certainly attend your every step in life ; and then 
that I might rend before your eyes the mighty veil 
that now conceals the secrets of that tremendous fu- 
ture down whose interminable ages each soul for it- 
self is ere long to begin its flight ! Then you might 
see how blessed and glorious you may be, if you will 
but, at once, submit yourselves to the kind leadings 
of Eternal Love ; and how fallen, ruined and unalter- 
ably wretched you must be, if you reject God's gui- 
dance, and so are lost to good. At least you will bear 
me witness, when you and I shall meet, — as meet we 
shall before God's great tribunal — if happily it be 
found that, refusing to take his guidance, you were 
hopelessly undone, that you perished not unwarned, 
not without being tenderly entreated to accept the 
proffered guidance of that compassionate and loving 



300 DISCOURSES, ETC. 

Father who had it in his heart to receive you as a 
child and to love and bless you evermore. The fear 
of the Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from evil, 
that is understanding. 



THE VALUE OF A LIFE AS RELATED TO 
OUR TIME. 



Luke x. 23-4. And he turned him unto his discvples, 
a/nd said jprivately^ — Blessed are the eyes which see 
the things that ye see : for I tell you, that many 
pro^phets and Icings have desired to see those things 
which ye see, and have not seen them / and to hear 
those things which ye hear, and ha/oe not heard 
them. 

What our blessed Lord wished his disciples to 
understand when he addressed to them these words 
was this : — that they ought to esteem it a great 
advantage to live in his time, to hear his words, and 
to see his mighty works. As compared with the ages 
in which the kings and prophets lived, who had pre- 
dicted, and longed to see, the day when the Messiah 
the Hope of Israel should come, the era in which 
Christ appeared and exercised his ministry among 

men, was as the sunrise to the glimmer of early dawn 
(301^ 



302 DISCOUESES ON THE 

— an era of preeminent light and opportunity, in 
which, rightly understood, it was indeed an inestima- 
ble privilege to live. Taken in this view, the text 
naturally suggests the thought that the value of any 
human life depends essentially on the circumstances 
under which that life is to be lived. It is for the sake 
of this thought that I have called your attention to 
the passage. Nothing better occurs to me, than to 
address you, as appropriate to this occasion on the 
value of a life as estimated in relation to this our 
time, and to the present condition of the world. 

. Let the subject be distinctly understood. The 
value of any individual life, in given circumstances, 
will of course depend on the amount of natural capac- 
ity possessed ; on the end proposed in living ; and 
on the length to which the life extends. But it is 
not of these things that I desire to speak. I wish to 
take just the opposite view. I wish to show that with 
a given capacity, a given rectitude of purpose, and a 
given length of days, the value of a life in the pres- 
ent state of things as regards ourselves, is vastly 
greater than it could have been at any former period 
of the world. 

Another word of explanation before proceeding 
with the subject. The value of a life : — To whom ? 
I shall perhaps be asked. To the individual himself? 
— Or to the world and the universe ? Both^ it may 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 303 

be answered ; — its intrinsic value in all its relations 
and results. The value of a life is proportioned to 
what is accomplished by it in the broadest possible 
estimate. 

What I have to show then in order to illustrate the 
truth derived from the text, is that in respect to all 
the chief circumstances on which the value of a life 
must depend, our time has a vast superiority over all 
past periods of the world. 

I say then, first of all, that in no past age of the 
world have such means of individual development 
existed, as are now enjoyed by us. 

As to the early intellectual and social condition of 
the oriental nations, with the exception of the He- 
brews, we know comparatively little. That of the 
Egyptians is involved in similar obscurity. No doubt 
that in the countries of the farther East, in Media and 
in Persia, and also on the Nile, there was, at an early 
period, a very considerable amount of a certain kind 
of intellectual culture. There is ample evidence, 
however, that it was narrow in its range and confined 
to a particular class, or classes, including but a small 
portion of the people. Among the Greeks, education 
in art, letters and philosophy was certainly carried to 
a high degree of refinement ; and the Eomans, on 
the basis of Grecian learning, wrought out for their 



304: DISCOUESES ON THE 

time a splendid literature. But neither among the 
Greeks nor the Eomans was knowledge widely dif- 
fused ; the facilities for education were not accessible 
to the masses; and while philosophers speculated 
acutely, both in the Old and the New Academy, and 
statesmen, orators, historians and poets, appeared in 
illustrious succession, it was nevertheless true that, for 
by far the greater portion of the population, the 
means of individual culture were very limited indeed. 
Without the printing press the dissemination of 
thought was difficult and slow. 

Since the revival of learning in modern times, there 
has undoubtedly been a steadily advancing extension 
of knowledge and education among the western 
nations. Italy, Germany, England and France, have 
had their golden periods of intellectual development, 
the result of which has been works in the various 
departments of letters and science, which are not 
likely to perish so long as the world shall stand. But 
if we look for example at the condition of the great 
body of the Italian people in the best days of the 
Medici ; or of the German people, in the time of 
Frederick the great, or of Luther ; or at that of the 
English people in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, or 
even of Queen Anne ; or at that of the French people 
in the days of Louis the XIY ; it is plain that in 
respect to the means of education, in the common 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 305 

meaning of the term, and still more in respect to 
other influences which tend to make every man a 
man, those periods were far behind the present cen- 
tury. The difference in favor of the present is greater, 
in fact, than we find it easy to believe. 

We need not speak of the present state of other 
countries. It will be sufficient for our purpose to 
confine our attention to our own ; and when we assert 
that never before since the world began, did any 
entire people enjoy such means of individual devel- 
opment as we are enjoying now and here, the only 
difficulty in substantiating the assertion lies in the 
abundance of the proof at hand. For what are the 
means by which individual life is awakened, stimu- 
lated and matured into healthful vigor ? Are schools 
essential? But when and where were schools of 
every grade, from the nursery to the university, 
brought so completely within the reach of all who 
are willing to receive their benefits, as among our- 
selves to-day ? Are the products of the press effect- 
ive to the end? But was any people ever so 
completely deluged with newspapers, magazines, and 
quarterlies, with children's books, school books, books 
in every department of literature and science, of 
philosophy and religion ; books of all prices, of all 
sizes, and on all conceivable subjects ? Are words 
spoken by living lips adapted to quicken individual 



306 DISCOURSES ON THE 

souls and elicit tlieir hidden forces ? Did ever a 
land resound from end to end and through all its deep 
recesses, as does this, with harangues of all imagin- 
able sorts — ^lectures, speeches, sermons, debates, 
forensic arguments and scholarly orations? Is indi- 
vidual mind aroused and excited by the general 
spirit of society, the atmosphere of intellectual and 
moral life by which it is surrounded ? Where was 
there ever such an intensity of social energy — such 
vehemence of thought and purpose, such burning, 
restless, eagerness of soul — as we see glowing in all 
eyes, and breathing through all the activities of the 
social system, in this our time and country ? And 
lastly, does Christianity, with her disclosures of man's 
presonal responsibility and the grandeur of his being, 
as. related to God and immortality, with her holy 
inspirations, and her manifold vitalising influences, 
act powerfully on individual man for his exaltation ? 
Where, then, or at what other time, has Christianity 
been brought to bear so widely and directly, and 
with so little to obstruct her healthful action, on the 
hearts and lives of men, as in all the older portions of 
our land, where as an all-pervading force, she exerts 
a molding influence alike on institutions and on 
people ? We are not saying that any or all these 
means of individual development, are producing all 
the results to be desired ; or that in the matter of 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 307 

profiting by them^ we have not many things to learn. 
We may have been, we may still be bad scholars, 
however good the school. But it is undeniable that 
the means themselves are such as were never enjoyed 
to an equal extent before. If there it not among us 
as a people, more individuality ; more force of per- 
sonal character, intellectual and moral ; or to say the 
whole in short, more real manhood and womanhood, 
than have been found in other centuries, it can only 
be because we have not understood our birthright, 
and have failed to make the best use of our advant- 
ages. What is the truth on this point, we will not 
now inquire. Enough that there is every thing in 
our position that would seem necessary to bring out 
whatever may be in us, and to make the most of all 
our capabilities. So far as the value of a life 
depends on the means of individual development, it 
was never so great as now. 

I come then to say further as a second thing, that 
never before did any people enjoy such liberty and 
scope of useful action as our time is now affording 
us. 

I do not here refer to our cJVil and religious free- 
dom, except as these are the necessary conditions of 
all activity. It is to the multitudinous openings for 
useful and honorable action, the unequaled number 
and variety of proffered opportunities, that I have 



308 DISCOURSES ON THE 

special reference. In no age has tlie restlessness of 
man failed to express itself in one way or another. Bat 
it has to a great extent been true in former centuries, 
that few paths comparatively, leading to good and 
noble ends, have been open to the larger portion of 
society. In Babylon and Nineveh, in Egypt, in 
Greece and Kome, in the feudal ages of Europe, not 
only was there a lack of the means to produce a high 
degree of individual development, but what of such 
development there actually was, could not express 
itself in appropriate activities ; in part from the 
checks and hindrances imposed by despotic govern- 
ments, and in part because the opening of the 
manifold channels of industry and enterprise is a 
work pertaining to a higher state of civilization than 
had then been reached. Not having open to it ways 
of good and wholesome effort, the force of society, by 
a sort of necessity, then expended itself in civil 
contests, in fierce and bloody wars, or in chimerical 
and fruitless undertakings, like the Crusades. In 
proportion as European civilization has advanced, 
there has been more of individual liberty and an 
increase of facilities fc» individual action, there ; but 
within the present century there has been an advance 
beyond any thing before conceived, and more among 
ourselves than any where else — not even excepting 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 309 

England, which in all healthful progress, is at the 
head ofthe Old World. 

Look a moment at the facts. There is no check to 
the liberty of individual action on the part of the gov- 
ernment under which we live, except simply what is 
demanded as a condition of social order. What that 
is right and honorable and good, is not every member 
of society free to do to the full measure of his capaci- 
ty ? And then what^izes, of wealth, of social hap- 
piness, of knowledge, of fame, of station and ot pow- 
er, are not within the reach of even the most humble ? 
What sort of talent is there to which there is not open 
some good and inviting field ? Will a man till the 
ground ? He is enabled now by science and mechan- 
ical skill, to do it in the most productive manner and 
with the least expenditure of labor ? Will a man en- 
gage in trade ? What is there that is not made an 
article of traffic, from the very stones and the hills of 
sand and pebbles, up to the richest products of nature 
and of art ; and whither can one look, over lands or 
seas, to the four winds of heaven that he shall not see 
the beaten paths of commerce right before him, in- 
viting him to try his fortunes if he will ? Will a man 
speak ? There are thousands of listening ears await- 
ing him. Will he write? Millions of hungry readers 
are ready to devour every worthy product of his pen. 
Will he be a statesman ? No hamlet in the land is so 



310 DISCO UKSES ON THE 

remote that his sayings and doings shall not be known 
and debated there. "Will any one live in seclusion 
and give himself to thought ? Electric wires and 
thundering cars will bring him incessant stimulants 
to thinking, and will enable him to transmit his 
thoughts to others, if he will, before they have had 
time to cool. "Will one devote himself to philanthro- 
pic labors? He will neither want materials to work 
upon, nor sympathy and co-operation in his efforts. 
Will he rise to the height of Christian heroism, and 
inspired with faith and love, attempt self-sacrificing 
toils in the dissemination of the Christian faith ? He 
will find himself united with vast multitudes of kin- 
dred spirit, and will easily put himself in connection 
with remotest regions of the world. I need not pur- 
sue this course of illustration. To every one of us 
there is given by the time and place in which we live 
a liberty for every sort of action, an extent and scope 
of influence, impossible to any age preceding, and 
such as the men of other generations could never even 
have imagined. The reality is beyond their dreams. 
If the end of life is useful action, when were there 
such facilities as at this day ? 

Still further, it may be added as a third fact in re- 
lation to our time that never so much as now was 
right individual effort effective for great results. All 



FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 311 

ages have bad those who, in comparison with others 
of their time, have done great things, and have left 
enduring marks of their power upon the world. But 
how many of the best and wisest of other times have 
labored all their lives to accomplish some noble pur- 
pose, for which their age was not prepared, or in the 
way of which the existing state of things arrayed a 
thousand difficulties ! How many of the choicest and 
most gifted spirits of our race, have sown in tears, 
through years of patient toil the seed of blessings, not 
by any possibility, to be reaped till long after they 
were dead. The memories of such are fragrant 
through the ages. They are God's jewels, that have 
gleamed out often amidst surrounding rubbish. If 
there is any sight more noble than all others in this 
world, it is that of men or women expending their 
best energies upon some work of love, with their eyes 
fixed only on those who shall live when they have 
lain down, perhaps long, in the silent dust. This is 
pre-eminently the God-like in well-doing — the sublime 
spectacle of disinterested goodness. 

But after all, it is certainly to be rega^-ded as a 
thing to be desired, to be ourselves permitted to reap, 
at least, to hegin to reap where we have sown. It is 
a happiness to be placed in a position in which the 
ruling forces around us appear to be working with us 
and not against us ; to see that the course of divine 



312 DISCOUESES ON THE 

Providence, the currents of human thought and opin- 
ion, and the general movements of society, combine 
to give effect to our right endeavors, whatever their 
specific character may be. It is certainly a most 
natural and reasonable desire, that our well-directed 
efforts may be attended not only with the largest, 
but with the speediest possible results. 

N"ow I am very far from saying that there are no 
difficulties to be encountered in our time by those 
who strive to accomplish something worthy in their 
lives. There are now, and probably always will be, 
difficulties not only to be met, but to be strenuously 
wrestled with, in doing good in this evil world. The 
ample and unprecedented facilities for doing almost 
anything to which we have referred, by no means 
presuppose the absence of opposing inffuences. La- 
bor itself is irksome ; and by a law of our condition, 
as fixed by divine Providence, no considerable good 
can be attained without effort made with some de- 
gree of self-denial, and in opposition to some things 
which will test courage, enei-gy and patience. There 
would be no room for great and heroic conduct if 
such were not the case. 

But when I say that at no time before was individ- 
ual effort to effective, so sure to be fruitful, and that 
speedily, of good results, I would have the following 
things considered. 



FORMATION OF RFXIGIOUS OPINIONS. 313 

First, that along with means of individual develop- 
ment, and liberty and scope of action, there is in the 
world at large — in the more enlightened portion of man- 
kind-^ greatly increased susceptibility to new and 
right impressions. There is far less of inertia, in man 
and in society, to be overcome, in the introduction of any 
new truth, the giving of any new impulse, the setting 
in motion of any new enterprise that can be shown to 
be at once possible and useful, than there ever was 
before. The rapid progress of art, science, intercom- 
munication and commerce, the collision of thought 
and interest in a thousand ways unknown to other 
generations, have roused the popular mind from its 
former lethargy. It is awake, susceptible, quick to 
apprehend. Instead of being' wedded to the old, and 
prejudiced against the new, it is, perhaps even to a 
perilous degree, disposed to distrust the old and to 
crave and seize the new. In such a state of things, 
whatever is said or done with earnestness and power, 
is sure to tell effectually. Seed sown, whatever it 
may be, is likely to come speedily to the harvest. 

A second circumstance that goes to the same point 

is that the present seems to be peculiarly a crisis in 

the history of nations and of mankind, on which great 

interests for the future are depending. There are such 

periods in individual life. How often a young man is 

seen to be brought, as it were, to a determining point 
14 



314 DISCOURSES ON THE 

for all his coming years. Within a short space he 
will settle and &x his principles, his character, his plan 
of life and action. A little influence on him then be- 
comes a most momentous influence, because -it may 
decide so much in relation to all his future history. 
Very much like this, I apprehend, is the present era 
in the progress of the world. It is true of the whole 
civilized world, to a great extent, it is eminently true 
in regard to our own country, — that great issues for 
coming generations appear to be crowded into this 
period in which we live — to be decided, for better or 
for worse, within a comparatively limited time. The 
greatest and most vital questions in regard to educa- 
tion, to civil and religious rights and institutions, — to 
government and laws, to philosophy, morals, and re- 
ligion, have come up, in the general excitement o'f the 
day, for new and more thorough and searching discus- 
sion. These earnest discussions will settle, in our own 
case, right or wrong, things which will enter, as ele- 
ments of life or death, the character and state of the 
mighty people that in the next, and in succeeding 
centuries, shall occupy and fill this land. To act now, 
therefore, is to act at the decisive moment, — as when 
a force comes into the field of battle just when the 
contest is the hottest, and victory is hanging in sus- 
pense ! The greatest results may often be achieved, 
in such a special juncture, by doing what in ordinary 



FORMATION OF EELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 315 

circumstances might accomplish very little. We of 
the present generation, may not only help to decide 
aright the great practical questions of our time, but 
we may see the effects of our influence to such an ex- 
tent that we may be assured that victory inclines to- 
wards the right ; and so be able to anticipate the 
thanks that grateful posterity will render us. It is a 
noble thing to live, when not only a few leading per- 
sons, but every individual, in proportion to what he 
is, may act with great results ; at least the beginnings 
and the certainty of which, he may also himself be 
allowed to see. Life at such a juncture, must be 
allowed to have a special value. 

I will notice but one more feature of our time 
which stands in special relation to the present value 
of a life. I think we cannot be mistaken in affirming 
that never before was Christ, the Head of that divine 
kingdom, which is to fill and transform the world, so 
manifestly as now bringing into effective action 
the great spiritual forces of that A:ingdom. I 
would not speak on this point in a vague and 
general manner. Let me explain precisely what 
I mean. 

The view which divine revelation gives us, an^ 
which we as believers in that revelation take, in rela- 
tion to the future of the world, is this : — That Christ, 



316 DISCOURSES ON THE 

as the Eedeemer of the world, has an invisible and 
spiritual dominion over it, and in it ; that this king- 
dom essentially consists in the establishment of truth 
and right and love, as permanent and controlling for- 
ces, in the hearts of men ; — that it is the setting up 
of this kingdom that is to bring in that far better and 
happier period of the world — that golden age — for 
which humanity is sighing, and to which th^ hopes 
of the hnman race continually go forward ; and that 
for the evolution of the powers and influences of this 
kingdom, Christ has from the day of his ascension 
been administering the providential government of 
the world. These, I say, to us are simple facts of 
Revelation. 

But it has never been the method of Providence to 
lead on faster than mankind, or at least the most, 
advanced portion of mankind, were able to follow 
It has plainly been the purpose of Christ to bring in 
his reign, in such a way as at once to help on, and to 
keep pace with the culture and progress of the race. 
As he said to the disciples — I have many things to 
say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now^ even so 
in effect he has been saying to the people of past cen- 
turies — I have many works to do, many spiritual for- 
ces to reveal, in the moral regeneration of the world ; 
but ye are not ready for them yet. So the day 
of his special power has lingered. Things have pro- 



FOEMATION OF RELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 317 

gressed ; sometimes with powerful impulses ; yet tlie 
general progress has seemed slow. Good men have 
lived and labored and suffered — have prayed and 
waited and died — sustained by steady faith, without 
having seen the signs of the coming of the Son of 
Man with power. 

But consider what has happened within the pres- 
ent century, by which the powerful coming of Christ 
to set up his reign, is seen. The last century closed 
with two great acts — the achievement of American 
freedom, which was as the rising of a day star to the 
nations, and the dreadful tragedy of the French Kev- 
olution ; and these, with the subsequent career of the 
first French Emperor, so shattered the old foundations 
of tyranny in Europe and America, that the whole 
structure has tottered ever since and cannot be made 
secure. Oppression may linger for some time longer, 
in the shape of governmental despotism or of domes- 
tic slavery. But Ke, who comes to preach deliver- 
ance to the captive and the opening of the prison 
doors to them that are bound, has given it the death 
blow. Die it must and will, — in spite of all the com- 
mercial and political doctors in the world. It is a 
question of mere time. 

At the opening of this century, Christ who is the 
Life, wrought in his Church the beginnings of a new 
spiritual vitality ; the fruit of which, was a waking 



318 DISCOURSES ON THE 

up to the great duty of carrying the blessings of 
Christianity to every creature. So was inaugurated 
the missionary work which is never to cease till not 
only the mountain-tops of the long benighted lands 
shall all be gilded by the beams of the sun of right- 
eousness ; but even the lowliest valleys shall be flooded 
with his light. 

The Holy Scriptures which testify of Christ, embody, 
his teachings, reveal immortality, redemption, and 
eternal retribution, and which are one of the great 
moral instrumentahties of his kingdom ; in connection 
chiefly with the missionary work, He has caused to 
be translated into more than a hundred and fifty 
tongues, including all the most important languages 
of men. So He who is to reign is applying his truth 
to the universal heart of humanity. 

Finally, the Holy Spirit, the highest and most 
wonderful and effective force of the spiritual kingdom 
of Christ, and which it is given him to dispense. He 
has poured out within this century to an extent, and 
with a power of x)peration, which has put cavillers to 
silence, and given even the great body of believers a 
new conception altogether as to the part He has to do 
in bringing the world to its coming day of joy. 

"What impressive illustrations of the power of Christ 
in the dispensation of the Spirit, and of his grace in 
bestowing pardon and peace with God, have the last 



FOEMATION OF EELIGIOITS OPINIONS. 319 

two or three years afforded in all parts of otu* coun- 
tiy! What age before has ever witnessed such? 
Wonders of a similar kind are now occurring in long- 
afflicted Ireland, and even in staid and unimpulsive 
Scotland herself. In England, too, the good work is 
now begun ; and in I^orway and Swedeft it is going 
on with power. Christian life, Christian unity in 
spirit, Christian philanthropy and love, Christian ac- 
tivity and zeal — these are the blessed fruits of the 
Holy Spirit's work. 

In these and other si'milar things which must be 
traced directly to the power and grace of Christ, as 
the Head of the Kingdom of God among mankind, 
we not only find the proof that he is more than ever 
revealing himself as intent on subduing the world unto 
himself; but we find also the ground of reasonable 
expectation that He is now going on to make, com- 
paratively, a short work on the earth. We seem to 
see him come at last, in the fulness of time, to work 
mightily in his people, and, as it were, to put himself 
at their head for the speedy conquest and moral puri- 
fication of the world. Whether, therefore, we think 
of the privilege of seeing all these glorious revelations 
of Christ's agency and Headship, or of the honor and 
the happiness of being permitted for years to cooper- 
ate with Him in the great movements He is starting, 
a life at such a time must have a special valv.e — a 



^20 DISCOTJESES ON THE 

value, as compared with a life lived in other periods 
of the world, bevond all computation. Blessed, indeed, 
are the eyes that see the things that we see — and that 
hear the things that we hear — ^far, far beyond the 
blessedness of those who lived when Christ was on the 
earth — or a^ny other time before or since his coming. 
Let us pause then at this point — ^for time will not 
allow us to prolong our necessarily imperfect sketch 
of the striking features of our day — ^let us pause and 
deliberately estimate, each one, as an individual, the 
value of a life at such an era. Quite probably, we 
have not seriously considered it. It is, indeed, ex- 
ceedingly difficult to appreciate it fully. We can 
only approximate the truth by dwelling distinctly on 
the fact, that as regards the means of improving to 
the utmost all our capacities, the liberty of acting as 
we will, with unlimited room for choice, the oppor- 
tunity to labor with the highest effectiveness to ac- 
complish something worthy and to make our mark 
upon the world, and the privilege of feeling that, 
more sensibly than any before us ever could have 
done, we are entering into the decisive movements of 
Jesus Christ for the recovery of the world to trutk 
and righteousness and love — ^it is only, I say, by dwel- 
ling on the fact that in all these things, . we have a 
vast advantage over those who have lived before us 
that we can come in any good degree to comprehend 



FOKMATION OF EELIGIOUS OPINIOKS. 321 

the real worth of this short life which it is given us to 
live — which we are living, in these auspicious circum- 
stances. How incalculable the loss to us, if we so fail 
to reflect on our position, as that we do not compre- 
hend the truth ! 

For what that is admirable in character, that is 
right and noble in action, that is glorious in achieve- 
ment, and honorable and blessed in active sympathy 
with Christ, is not within our reach? "We may, 
certainly, even in our favorable circumstances, live 
to but very little purpose. We may live selfishly — 
pursuing mean and unworthy ends — to make a little 
show — ^to hoard up wealth with greediness — to chase 
any of the vain shadows of earthly and sensual good. 
— But if we know the worth of life, and act accord- 
ingly, what may not we who are alive at this day, 
or some of us, become before we die ? What energy 
of virtuous action, what beautiful examples of well 
doing, in the various spheres of duty, may we not 
exhibit to the world ? What may we not, in part or 
whole, accomplish, in which we and others may 
rejoice, and for which this and other times will 
cherish and bless our memories? What wondrous 
changes in the condition of the world, involving the 
vastly augmented welfare of our race, may we not 
sea*wrought out by Christ, and in part through our 

own instrumentality, before our sun of life shall set ? 

14* 



322 DISCOURSES ON THE 

These questions may be appropriately put to all in 
every assembly. They have, however, special force as 
addressed to those who are yet young. You, my 
young friends, some of you may live to see the close 
of the present century ; and if the forty years last 
past have wrought such changes, the forty that shall 
follow, will, with the greatest probability, bring others 
still more wonderful. The year 1900 will see the 
population of our country spreading from the one 
ocean to the other. It will see us, if a united people, 
and still smiled upon by providence, the most power- 
ful people on the globe. It will see the insti- 
tution of slavery hasting to its end, if not destroyed. 
It will see the power of Christianity in this land, and 
in the world, prodigiously augmented. It will see 
the hopes of humanity far brighter, as the prospects 
of the future will be far more bright and cheering, 
than they have ever been before. O young man, 
young woman, that may live to reach that date, will 
it not then seem to you to have been a thing sublime 
and blessed, to have not only lived in the midst of 
such events, but also to have borne in them some 
earnest, high and honorable part ! Yes, yes, it 
will ; believe it, and wake now fully and finally 
to the inexpressible "value of a life in such a time as 
this in which it is given you to live ! But most of 
us now here will have closed our mortal course lo^ng 



FORMATION OF KELIGIOUS OPINIONS. 323 

before the last sands of this century run out. It is 

for us to make the most of every moment that 
remains. 



Let me only say in closing, that with the thought 
of the divine goodness in permitting us to live in such 
a period, we may quicken our gratitude to-day. — 
While with a thousand tender and pleasant recollec- 
tions, we offer thanks to Almighty God, while in our 
families, our hearts are gladdened with influences of 
cheerfulness and love, let us reflect how widely dif- 
ferent had been our lot in any of the centuries gone 
by. For all the good and hopeful things, that it is 
now given our eyes to see and our ears to hear ; for 
everything that enhances the value of a life in this 
our native land, and in this our most momentous era, 
let us render hearty thanksgiving to our God. May 
his Spirit so touch our hearts, as to call forth from 
them that genuine gratitude which is " the perfume 
of the soul !" May he give us some just sense of our 
high responsibility, and kindle in our souls such 
Christian aspirations, such lofty purposes, such firm 
resolves to make the utmost of our lives, that having 
given our years to Christ, and done our utmost in liis 
service, we may go to our graves at last, as the sum- 



324 



DISCOURSES ON THE 



mer sun goes down serenely to his setting, and keep 
an eternal Thanksgiving, with the Church of the re- 
deemed, amidst the splendors of his throne !* 



* The albove discourse was delivered on occasion of the Annual Thanks- 
giving. 



THE END 



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8mo., . 



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1 00 

60 

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1 00 



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t€ « €€ 

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i2mo., . 


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Fine ed., red edges. 


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• 


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63 

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75 
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75 
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>3 



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